Latest from Next TV in Gop-debate

Cable News Nets Dominate February Ratings

thomas.umstead@futurenet.com (R. Thomas Umstead) — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 15:45:00 +0000

Cable news networks dominated the February primetime ratings race with Fox News finishing as the most watched network and CNN posting the largest year-to- year gains.

Fox News averaged 2.18 million viewers for the period of Feb. 1 to Feb. 28, up 21% from the same period last year, according to Nielsen. USA finished second with 1.8 million viewers, down 8% from February 2015, followed by HGTV (1.7 million viewers, up 13% from the year prior).

CNN drew 1.5 million viewers, up a whopping 207% from February 2015, tying AMC, which was down 16% from last year.

AMC was the top choice among adults 18-49 in primetime, while TBS was tops among adults 25-54 during the month.

Fox News was the most watched network among adults 25-54, besting Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Adult Swim, and HGTV, according to Nielsen.

Most Watched Shows During The Month of February 2016

Date Show Network Total Viewers

2/25 Texas GOP Debate CNN 13.1 million

2/28 The Walking Dead AMC 12.7 million

2/25 Texas GOP Debate CNN 7.4 million

2/28 Talking Dead AMC 4.8 million

2/22 WWE Monday Night Raw USA 4.2 million

2/26 Gold Rush Discovery 4.1 million

2/22 WWE Monday Night Raw USA 4.0 million

2/25 Texas GOP Post-Debate CNN 3.8 million

2/23 The O’Reilly Factor Fox News 3.6 million

2/23 Fixer Upper HGTV 3.4 million

Source: Nielsen

Fox News Channel Googles Jan. 28 GOP Debate

john.eggerton@futurenet.com (John Eggerton) — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 23:00:00 +0000

In the ongoing partnership between news organizations and edge providers -- like Twitter and Facebook -- for campaign coverage, Fox News Channel said Thursday (Jan. 21) it will partner with Google on the Jan. 28 GOP presidential candidate debate in Des Moines, Iowa, in advance of the Iowa caucuses.

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are in a pitched battle for that important first victory.

The Google Trends home page will provide viewers information on candidate searches of interest and topics covered during the debate. The page also will be showcased on Fox in post-debate analysis.

The debate is being moderated by Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace.

Fox News to Host January Republican Presidential Debate

thomas.umstead@futurenet.com (R. Thomas Umstead) — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 22:45:00 +0000

Fox News will televise its second Republican presidential primary debate on Jan. 28, the network announced Monday.

The debate from Des Moines, Iowa will be the first for Fox News since its record-breaking Aug. 6 debate, which drew a network record 24 million viewers.

Fox News Special Report anchor Bret Baier, The Kelly File anchor Megyn Kelly and FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace will return as moderators for the Jan. 28 debate, the last contest among the candidates before the Iowa Caucus on Feb. 1.

The criteria for candidate entry to the debate will be announced closer to the date. Following the debate, FNC will present special live daytime and primetime programming from Iowa in the days leading up to the Iowa Caucus, said the network.

Fox Business Pulls 13.5 Million Viewers for GOP Debate

thomas.umstead@futurenet.com (R. Thomas Umstead) — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 19:15:00 +0000

As expected Fox Business Network generated a record audience of 13.5 million viewers for its Republican Presidential debate telecast Tuesday night.

The fourth nationally televised Republican debate also drew a record 3.7 million viewers in the network’s target 25-54 demo, according to network officials. The network’s early Republican Presidential debate averaged 4.7 million viewers and 866,000 watchers in the adult 25-54 demo, according to the network.

The debate also drove Twitter traffic throughout the telecast.

Fox Business joins Fox News, CNN, and CNBC in garnering record-setting audiences for Republican Presidential debates since August.

Up next is broadcast network CBS' Nov. 14 Democratic Presidential Debate telecast and CNN's Dec. 15 Republican debate event.

ESPN Tops Weekly Cable Ratings Charts

thomas.umstead@futurenet.com (R. Thomas Umstead) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 19:45:00 +0000

ESPN closed out October as the most watched network in primetime, according to Nielsen.

The sports network averaged 2.9 million viewers to top all comers during the week of Oct. 26-Nov. 1, easily besting second place AMC, which generated 1.9 million viewers.

CNBC rode its record-setting Oct. 28 Republican Debate coverage to a third place finish for the week with 1.8 million viewers, beating out rival cable news service Fox News’ 1.6 million watchers.

USA Network (1.5 million viewers) TNT and Disney Channel (tied with 1.4 million) TBS (1.3 million), HGTV (1.2 million) and Discovery Channel (1.1 million) rounded out the top 10.

ESPN, Nickelodeon and Fox News tied for the top spot among the most watched cable networks on a 24-hour basis with 1.1 million, with Disney Channel and Adult Swim close behind, according to Nielsen.

Most Watched Cable Shows For Week Of Oct. 26 to Nov. 1

Date Telecast Network Total Viewers

10/28 Republican Presidential Debate CNBC 14.0 million

11/1 The Walking Dead AMC 13.3 million

10/26 Monday Night Football (Balt-Ariz) ESPN 12.2 million

11/1 Talking Dead AMC 4.6 million

10/31 College Football (Mich-Minn) ESPN 3.6 million

10/26 SportsCenter ESPN 3.6 million

10/26 WWE Monday Night Raw USA 3.6 million

10/30 Gold Rush Discovery 3.5 million

10/31 College Football (Ole Miss-Auburn) ESPN 3.4 million

10/29 The O’Reilly Factor Fox News 3.4 million

Source: Nielsen

GOP Suspends Debate on NBCU’s Telemundo

jon.lafayette@futurenet.com (Jon Lafayette) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 18:15:00 +0000

The Republican National Committee has suspended plans to have a presidential primary debate on NBCUniversal’s Spanish-language network Telemundo.

In a letter to Andrew Lack, chairman of NBC News, Reince Priebus, chairman of the RNC, cited Wednesday night’s debate on CNBC as the reason for the suspension.

“The CNBC network is one of your media properties, and its handling of the debate was conducted in bad faith," Priebus wrote. "We understand that NBC does not exercise full editorial control over CNBC’s journalistic approach. However, the network is an arm of your organization, and we need to ensure there is not a repeat performance."

"While debates are meant to include tough questions and contrast candidates’ visions and policies for the future of America, CNBC’s moderators engaged in a series of “gotcha” questions, petty and mean-spirited in tone, and designed to embarrass our candidates. What took place Wednesday night was not an attempt to give the American people a greater understanding of our candidates’ policies and ideas,' Priebus said.

NBC News said in a statement: “This is a disappointing development. However, along with our debate broadcast partners at Telemundo, we will work in good faith to resolve this matter with the Republican Party."

The CNBC debate drew a criticism from other quarters as well.

"CNBC managed to please almost no one, except maybe the candidates who scored easy points by pummeling the questioners," wrote James Poniewozik in The New York Times. "The forum was raucous but not revealing, combative but not authoritative, chaotic but not interesting. And it ended in the nigh-impossible spectacle of conservatives accusing the Wall Street-focused business network of swinging the ax for the liberal media."

The debate drew 14 million viewers, a record for CNBC though not as many as prior debates on Fox News Channel and CNN attracted.

Losing a debate could be a financial setback for NBCU and Telemundo. With millions tuning in, ad rates have jumped for networks hosting presidential debates. CNBC sold ads at rates reaching $250,000 per spot, and NBCU executives reportedly called Wednesday the most profitable day in the network's history.

Read more, including the full text of the RNC's letter, at broadcastingcable.com.

Fox Business to Air Republican Debates

thomas.umstead@futurenet.com (R. Thomas Umstead) — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 20:15:00 +0000

Fox Business Network and the Wall Street Journal will present Republican presidential primary debates on Nov. 10, the network said Tuesday (Oct. 27).

The primetime debate, which will feature the top Republican candidates that generate a 2.5% average across the four most recent national polls, will be moderated by Fox Business managing editor of business news Neil Cavuto, global markets editor Maria Bartiromo and Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker.

The remaining candidates scoring below a 2.5% average in the polls will appear onstage during a 6 p.m. debate, the network said.

Both debates will focus on jobs, taxes and the general health of the economy, as well as domestic and international policy issues.

The Republican debates have been ratings gold for cable networks. Fox News Channel's Aug. 6 GOP debate generated a record 24 million viewers, while CNN’s Sept. 16 debate telecast drew 23 million viewers.

CNBC Wednesday will televise the third GOP debate, which will be held in Colorado.

CBS/NYT Poll: Carson Pushes Ahead of Trump

john.eggerton@futurenet.com (John Eggerton) — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 15:30:00 +0000

On the eve of the next Republican debate, in Colorado Oct. 28, a new CBS/New York Times poll shows that Ben Carson has edged ahead of Donald Trump in the race for the GOP nomination, though the gap remains within the poll's margin of error.

Just over a quarter -- 26% -- of Republican primary voters now support Carson compared with 22% for Trump, followed by Marco Rubio in third place at 8%, and Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina each with 7%, according to the poll.

The margin of error is 4 percentage points plus or minus for the whole sample, and 6 percentage points for Republican voters, which means that Carson and Trump are in a statistical dead heat.

But the poll also found that a majority of Republican voters (7 of 10) say they are not sure about who they will support.

The poll was a random telephone surveyof 1,289 adults nationwide conducted Oct. 21-25.

Facebook Equips Broadcasters With New Tools

George Winslow, B&C — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 12:45:00 +0000

As part of a larger push to work closer with broadcasters, Facebook is rolling out a number of new features to help broadcasters and programmers better engage audiences.

These include a new voting and polling API, hashtag voting, native polling features, a video and photo submission capabilities, video and photo galleries and custom icons.

A number of the technologies, including the video and photo submission capabilities were created in partnership with Telescope.

Telescope is also the first company to adopt the new Hashtag Voting API.

Several of a tools have already been tested by such programmers as HBO, Fox News and others but they were officially rolled out on October 6th and were being demoed this week at the MIPCOM programming market in Cannes, France.

The video and photo submission tool, for example, was used in the Fox News/Facebook Aug. 6 GOP debate to handle more than 40,000 video questions that were submitted by the public.

The new tools add onto an extensive development effort by Facebook to make it easier for broadcasters to integrate into their platform and use it to interact and engage with their audience.

Must-See TV, and More of It

john.eggerton@futurenet.com (John Eggerton) — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 13:45:00 +0000

Almost 50 million people have watched the first two presidential candidate debates. That’s not exactly a Super Bowl-like number, but in a world of fractured media, getting that many people to watch politicians discussing actual issues that could affect us all for generations — OK, as well as what a brilliant and successful businessman one of them professes to be — is impressive.

Say what you will about Donald Trump, he has made politics into a compelling spectator sport.

I have been a debate junkie since college, when I watched President Ford and Jimmy Carter live from the cheap seats in William & Mary Hall, but the “what will they say next” nature of this political season has extended the audience beyond political junkies.

That’s why I am rooting for the Democratic National Committee to add some more candidate debates to the schedule.

Last week, when pressed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Hillary Clinton said the decision was not hers to make but that she would be willing to expand the lineup. Given the ratings and ad-sales potential for debates — CNN expanded its GOP main event debate to three hours last week — civic-mindedness would also be good business.

The ball, as CNN pointed out, is in the DNC’s court. Some have suggested the party is limiting the debates to favor Clinton. Not limiting them favors the rest of us, and would put that criticism to rest.

What I would also like to see is similar TV-network (and viewer) interest in a couple of candidate forums at Drake University. Those are the “Brown and Black” forums that will give candidates of both parties a chance to talk specifically about minority issues.

A Drake spokesperson had no comment on what the TV-related plans for those are, but given the rhetoric around immigration and the current state of race relations in this country, it is not debatable that the candidates should show up and that it should be as widely available as possible.

Trump on Debate: Three Hours Was Too Much

john.eggerton@futurenet.com (John Eggerton) — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 13:30:00 +0000

Republican Front-runner Donald Trump said on MSNBC's Morning Joe that Wednesday night's Three-hour debate was too long, but the reality TV veteran said that he recognized that gave CNN a chance to sell more ad time into it--Trump has also talked on the campaign trail about all the money he made from The Apprentice.

"Three hours is really unacceptable. What happened is about a week ago, we got a call that they were going to make the debate almost an hour more," he said. "And you know what that is, that means the advertising is so dense and so deep and they’re getting tremendous numbers per minute and for half minute that they just added another 45 minutes to an hour to the debate."

The CNN-broadcast debate was a marathon, including an hour-and-a-half undercard debate among the four candidates out of the top 10 (actually 11 after Carly Fiorina was added to the main event) and the 8-11 prime time debate.

Trump told CNN immediately after the debate that he thought three hours was pushing it, but also said he thought the network had done a good job.

Trump told MSNBC he thought he had been treated fairly, but that it was too much about him, which might have been a bit unfair to the others. "[E]verything was about Trump," he said. "And then they go into this debate and there was split screens all over the place. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a little bit unfair to a lot of other people, frankly. But from my standpoint, I was treated fairly."

AS to the format of the debate--which started with a series of questions about Trump to other candidates, Trump said it reminded him of a wrestling match.

"They’re taking every sentence I’ve said over the last five months – that was you know tough – and put it to the other people—That was a Vince McMahon would’ve loved it, because that was a WWE kind of a thing.. Actually a couple of them [other candidates] came up and they said, ‘you know what Donald—can I hit you so that I can get a little bit more time?’ because some of these guys I felt badly—a lot of them are friends of mine and they got, they got no air time last night."

Actually, while Trump dominated the early rounds, once the policy questions started coming thick and fast, the airtime was spread around, with Trump unusually quiet for stretches.

Trump said after the debate that he was happy with both his debate performances so far. But a kinder, gentler Trump also said he had a lot of respect for a lot of people on the stage.

Trump to CNN: Donate Sept. 16 Debate Profits to Vets

john.eggerton@futurenet.com (John Eggerton) — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 15:15:00 +0000

In the wake of stories about how much spot ads are going for in the Sept. 16 GOP debate (a 4,000% increase), leading candidate Donald Trump has written CNN president Jeff Zucker suggesting the network donate profits from those ads to veterans' groups.

Fox drew debate-record ratings for its Aug. 6 airing of the first Trump vs. the rest of the GOP field debate.

In a letter to Zucker dated Sept. 8, a copy of which Trump tweeted, the Republican candidate said that since he was sure it was his appearance that would be driving viewership -- "this tremendous increase in viewer interest and advertising is due 100% to Donald J. Trump," he bragged -- the network should air the debate as a public service and donate the ad dollars.

Trump said he would soon be supplying Zucker a list of the organizations he was suggesting get the money. "This large contribution of many millions of dollars would be a truly wonderful thing for CNN to do," he added.

No word on whether CNN would take that unusual step -- a spokesperson had not returned a request for comment at press time -- but the likelihood was low, particularly after CNN announced Wednesday it was providing free online and mobile viewing of the TV debate to boost the eyeballs for advertisers seeking more bang for their bucks.

CNN Opens GOP Debate to All Online Viewers

john.eggerton@futurenet.com (John Eggerton) — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 14:30:00 +0000

CNN wants to show advertisers some more money while showing the upcoming GOP debate.

The cable news network said Wednesday it would provide free online streaming across mobile and browser-based platforms of its live coverage of the Sept. 16 debate.

Ordinarily streaming CNN requires subscriber authentication, but the cable net said it was providing a "preview" of TV everywhere, enabling viewers without an MVPD service to live-stream the event, providing advertisers with extra eyeballs to advertisers; CNN is reportedly asking big bucks for spots in the debate.

Fox's coverage of the first debate, which featured some Donald Trump-related fireworks, drew record numbers, and CNN is looking for a similar audience for round two, which it is hosting.

"We’ve had huge advertiser interest across platforms for the debate, and by opening up the free preview, this will give advertisers additional exposure across platforms," a network spokesperson said. "Additionally, we’re digitally inserting ads into the CNNgo experience, which offers additional revenue."

Fox News Whips Cable Nets in August

thomas.umstead@futurenet.com (R. Thomas Umstead) — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 18:30:00 +0000

Fox News was sizzling during the dog days of summer, riding a record primetime ratings performance from its Republican Debate telecast to lead all cable networks in August.

Fox News averaged 2.4 million viewers to top all cable networks during the period of July 27 to Aug. 30, bolstered by the 25 million viewers the network drew for its Aug. 6 Presidential Primary debate, which was the most watched show of the month.

Disney Channel and TNT tied for second with a distant 1.9 million viewers each, according to network officials.

USA Network was fourth with 1.7 million viewers, followed by HGTV and History with 1.5 million viewers each, according to Nielsen. TBS (1.4 million viewers), Discovery and AMC (1.2 million) and ESPN, Fx and Lifetime (all tied with 1.1 million) rounded out the top 10.

Disney was the top choice among all networks during on a 24-hour basis, followed by Nickelodeon, Fox News, Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, according to Nielsen.

Trump Continues Twitter Tirade Against FNC's Kelly

john.eggerton@futurenet.com (John Eggerton) — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 15:45:00 +0000

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump took to Twitter to take aim at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly Monday night (Aug. 24) after her return from vacation.

Trump took issue with her tough -- he said unfair -- questioning at the first Republican debate, took aim on Twitter and in interviews on a host of news shows and, if his Twitter account is any barometer, has clearly not gotten over it.

First Trump fired off this Tweet: "@megynkelly must have had a terrible vacation, she is really off her game. Was afraid to confront Dr. Cornel West. No clue on immigration!"

He followed that with: "I liked The Kelly File much better without @megynkelly. Perhaps she could take another eleven day unscheduled vacation!"

And then: "Megyn needs to go back on vacation. What a waste of an hour on Fox."

The three messages got thousands of retweets and favorites.

Fox had no immediate comment about the new attacks, but others in the Twittersphere did.

"It's shocking actually, CNN's Brian Stelter tweeted. "The GOP frontrunner, trashing Fox's biggest star, retweeting his fans who call @MegynKelly a 'bimbo' and 'a waste.'

Blogger Perez Hilton tweeted, "Donald Trump Attacks Megyn Kelly AGAIN — Is This Bordering On Cyber Bullying?!"

For her part, Kelly has stayed out of the fracas, saying she would do her job "without fear of favor" and leaving it at that.

"This is a tough business, and it is time now to move forward," she said soon after Trump's initial barrage following the GOP debate earlier this month.

As for Trump's reference to the "unscheduled vacation," a Fox spokesperson said when the issue was first raised more than a week ago that "the conspiracy theories about Megyn Kelly’s vacation rank up there with UFOs, the moon landing and Elvis being alive."

"Megyn is on a pre-planned, annual summer vacation with her family, which is much deserved," the spokesperson confirmed. "To imply otherwise, as Donald Trump and his campaign operatives have, is not only wildly irresponsible, but downright bizarre."