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NEW YORK – As a Democrat who immersed himself in the political news of the presidential campaign, Ziad Aunallah has a lot in common with many Americans since the election. It’s offline.
“People are mentally exhausted,” said Aunallah, 45, of San Diego. “Everyone is coming up and we’ll just take some time off. “
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The television audiences – and now a new vote – obviously illustrate the phenomenon. About two-thirds of American adults say they have recently felt the desire to restrict their consumption of media about politics and government because of overload, according to a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The poll found that a smaller percentage of Americans restrict their intake of news about foreign conflicts, the economy or climate change. Politics stands out.
Election news on CNN and MSNBC takes up too much of Sam Gude’s time before the election, said the 47-year-old electrician from Lincoln, Nebraska. “The last thing I need to look at now is the interregnum,” said Gude, a Democrat and non-supporter of President-elect Donald Trump.
The poll, conducted in early December, found that about seven in ten Democrats say they are fleeing politics. The percentage is higher for Republicans, who have reason to celebrate Trump’s victory. However, about 6 in 10 Republicans say they also felt the desire to take time off, and the percentage of independents is similar.
The differences are much more marked for television channels that have been fed political news.
After election night through Dec. 13, MSNBC’s average primetime audience was 620,000, down 54% from this year’s pre-election audience, Nielsen Array said. For the same comparison period, CNN’s average audience of 405,000 declined by 45%.
On Fox News Channel, a news network favored by Trump fans, the post-election average of 2. 68 million viewership rose 13%, Nielsen said. Since the election, 72% of people who watched one of those three cable networks overnight watched Fox News, up from 53% before Election Day.
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A post-election slump for fans of the losing candidate is not a new trend for networks that have become heavily identified for a partisan audience. MSNBC had similar issues after Trump was elected in 2016. Same for Fox in 2020, although that was complicated by anger: many of its viewers were outraged then by the network’s crucial election night call of Arizona for the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, and sought alternatives.
MSNBC had its own anger outbursts after several “Morning Joe” viewers were disappointed that hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited Trump shortly after his victory last month. However, even though the show’s ratings have dropped 35% since Election Day. , this decrease is less than that of the channel in prime time.
CNN notes that while television ratings have suffered, its virtual and streaming audiences have remained constant.
MSNBC can take some solace in history. In previous years, network ratings bounce back when the depression after an election loss lifts. When a new administration takes office, people who oppose it are frequently looking for a gathering place.
“I’ll be tuning back in once the clown show starts,” Aunallah said. “You have no choice. Whether or not you want to hear it, it’s happening. If you care about your country, you have no choice but to pay attention.”
But the adventure may not be easy. MSNBC’s decline is steeper than in 2016; and it is questionable whether Trump’s warring parties will need to be as committed as they were during his first term. People are also disconnecting from cable TV at an increasingly immediate rate, though MSNBC believes it has already resisted this trend of devouring audiences.
The poll indicates that Americans want less talk about politics from public figures in general. After an election season where endorsements from celebrities like Taylor Swift made headlines, the survey found that Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of celebrities, large companies and professional athletes speaking out about politics.
However, Gude is one of those who is finding other tactics to get data that he should pay attention to, especially on YouTube.
MSNBC is also in the midst of corporate upheaval that is raising questions about potential changes. Parent company Comcast announced last month that the in-home cable network would be spun off into a new company, giving MSNBC new corporate leadership and severing its ties with NBC News.
Some of the Americans who have turned away from political news lately also had some advice for getting them engaged again.
Gude said, for example, that MSNBC will have a die-hard audience of Trump haters. But if the channel needs to expand its audience, “then we have to communicate about the unrest and avoid communicating about Trump. ”
Kathleen Kendrick, a 36-year-old sales rep from Grand Junction, Colorado, who’s a registered independent voter, said she hears plenty of people loudly spouting off about their political opinions on the job. She wants more depth when she watches the news. Much of what she sees is one-sided and shallow, she said.
“You get a story but only part of a story,” Kendrick said. “It would be nice if you could get both sides, and more research.”
Aunallah, similarly, seeks more intensity and variety. He’s no longer interested in “seeing the guy on the corner yelling at me,” he said.
“It’s kind of their own fault that I’m not watching,” he said. “I felt they spent all this time talking about the election. They made it so much of their focus that when the main event ends, why would people want to keep watching?”
The survey of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, a pattern drawn from NORC’s probability test.
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