Biden town hall on CNN finishes third in cable news race

[JoeOtterbein]

[link:https://thehill.com/homenews/media/470123-biden-town-hall-on-cnn-finishes-third-in-cable-news-race|

BY JOE CONCHA - 11/12/19 04:02 PM EST

CNN's town hall featuring 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden delivered 1.15 million viewers on Monday night to finish third in a cable news race against Fox News and MSNBC, according to early ratings from Nielsen Media Research.

Overall, the 1.15 million total viewers tuning in to see Biden from 9:00 pm to 10:15 pm ET was a 13 percent drop when compared to the last town hall featuring the former vice president on Oct. 10 on the same network, which registered 1.34 million viewers.

Fox News' "Hannity" at 9:00 p.m. and "The Ingraham Angle" at 10:00 p.m. took in an average of 2.9 million total viewers during that the time Biden event aired from Iowa.

MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes" and "The Rachel Maddow Show" finished second with 2.69 million viewers.

snip

more at link

Why? I caught a bit. I wish I could have watched more. Joe's one of our front-runners. Any (polite) ideas?

[Tarc]

1. I'd much rater watch Maddow

[onecaliberal]

2. I had no idea Biden was doing a townhall on CNN or I would have watched

[Bayard]

13. Same here

I'm definitely sorry I missed it.

But I don't watch CNN normally. I'm assuming they were promoting it.

[Politicub]

23. Same here, too.

These aren’t well publicized until after the fact. And the news is useless when what gets reported is who “won”.

I don’t watch a lot of CNN, though, or hardly any broadcast news for that matter. My blood pressure can’t handle the constant barrage of republican spin.

[highplainsdem]

3. CNN always finishes third. The town hall did better than the rest of their prime time lineup last

night.

As for WHY CNN is usually third in the ratings...Fox gets all the conservatives, with CNN and MSNBC splitting the liberals and moderates. But CNN probably loses a lot of liberal viewers because they give so much air time to conservatives.

[evertonfc]

4. To be fair,

no one is paying attention now. Period. Sure, the political junkies are but the average person couldn't tell you a thing about a town hall, these impeachment proceedings, transcripts that are being released or what they concern. You would be stunned at how uninformed and unengaged people are now. Life is in the way I guess

[George II]

5. And....

[Thekaspervote]

6. Indeed!! The number of viewers for the last presidential debate was way down....so

[JoeOtterbein]

10. True. That's bad for us. How can we get better ratings for all our candidates?

We need to find a way ASAP.

[boomer_wv]

7. Tell me what candidate

wouldn't take a free 75 minutes of airtime in front of 1.15 million people? Not to mention 10 or 20 times that number have heard today how well it went.

If I were Bidens campaign I'd have him doing this as much as possible. It would be a weekly thing if I could pull it off.

[Thekaspervote]

8. Great points...some just have to keep jabbing!!

[JoeOtterbein]

11. We need to get all our candidates more free media this time.

We let Trump suck up all the time in '16. We should not make the same mistake.

[Sloumeau]

9. I support Biden, but I never miss Rachel.

Besides, I know exactly how great Joe Biden is. I don't need any more convincing.

[JoeOtterbein]

12. We need to know as much as we can now to elect and then protect our nominee.

The attacks from the right will be ruthless whoever it may be.

All eyes on the prize!

[UniteFightBack]

14. CNN is always third in the ratings. nt

[awesomerwb1]

15. So...they finished where they always finish?

This is getting old.

[JoeOtterbein]

16. Please don't imply Joe is getting old.

I'm trying to find out why so many watched Maddow over Biden. Is she a more interesting person to watch than Joe?

[padah513]

17. Petty

[still_one]

18. damn right, and not coincidently it seems to be coming always from the same folks who seem more

intent to divide people then discuss issues

just bullshit

[highplainsdem]

19. What part of "CNN always finishes third" (as I pointed out above) didn't you understand?

Plus the novelty of town halls is wearing off, just as the novelty of debates wore off, and with the impeachment hearings today the main focus of both CNN and MSNBC this week has been impeachment.

[LanternWaste]

21. I imagine if you really are attempting to find out, there are many on-line resources to use.

Or, you could simply continue alleging a sincere curiosity, yet without doing anything to sate it.




(I'm guessing one of the two is much more likely... ending with a justification as to why the research is too difficult)

[TidalWave46]

20. Not sure I see how this is a bad thing.

Over a million people watched? Sounds like a great campaign event. I wouldn't even consider tuning in. Such better things to do. And I might be voting for Biden and love the guy.

[Otto Lidenbrock]

22. CNN are making a big mistake not making it available to watch on youtube

Many people like me couldn't catch it live but apart from the odd clip posted on social media there is no full video I can find.

[PhoenixDem]

24. Many many people record it to watch later at leisure

The rating system does not include them.

Sometimes 5 times as many people watch it afterwards.