CNN, the cable network which hosted Wednesday’s GOP debate, really loves Donald Trump. Like, really, really.
According to a report released on Wednesday by the Media Research Center, CNN spent a whopping 78% of their primetime Republican campaign coverage between August 24th and September 4th covering the billionaire businessman. That equates to about 580 of 747 minutes.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush received the second highest amount of coverage with 12%, or 88 minutes. Ben Carson was third with 5.5%, Scott Walker took fourth with 1.29%. In fifth place, Carly Fiorina received 1.11% of the coverage Everyone else in the primary was allotted less than a single percentage point of coverage.
These numbers make up just a 10-day span of CNN’s broadcasts. According to the Wall Street Journal, since June 16th, the day Donald Trump announced his intention to seek the White House, CNN has covered roughly 2,159 Trump stories. That equates to one story per hour, for 24 hours straight, for 90 straight days, the WSJ reporter points out.
For some perspective, the Washington Examiner’s T. Becket Adams notes that in the same span of time, Fox News has covered Trump 1,540 times while MSNBC has covered Trump only 1,426 times.
According to NewsBusters, part of the enormous amount of time included three Trump press conferences, in their entirety:
Three Trump campaign events were broadcast in their entirety during these two weeks, not including replays of press conferences that had already occurred. No press conferences for any of the other 16 candidates were broadcast. CNN even bumped its own special commemorating the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina to cover a Trump press conference in Iowa.
The media is most definitely addicted to The Donald, as CNN’s own Brian Stelter admitted in August. And that’s because Trump brings in serious ratings, essentially making Trump a walking dollar bill for press outlets.
In fact, the first Republican debate drew more than 24 million viewers, a record-shattering statistic that was attributed to Trump’s position on the stage. CNN pulled in its own record with 23 million viewers on Wednesday night.
As such, CNN raised the price of its advertisement space during Wednesday’s debate by an astounding 40 times. According to the Los Angeles Times, a 30-second ad during the debate went for as much as $150,000 or maybe even $200,000.
Source: Independent Journal
