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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 knows what’s coming and we’re just taking some time off. “
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Television ratings — and now a new poll — clearly illustrate the phenomenon. About two-thirds of American adults say they have recently felt the need to limit media consumption about politics and government because of overload, according to the survey from 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 Sam Gude too long before the election, said the 47-year-old electrician from Lincoln, Nebraska. “The last thing I need to look at right now is the interregnum,” said Gude, a Democrat and I’m not a fan of President-elect Donald Trump.
The poll, conducted in early December, found that about seven in 10 Democrats say they are fleeing politics. The percentage is the highest 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 far starker for the TV networks that have been consumed by political news.
After election night through Dec. 13, MSNBC’s average prime-time audience was 620,000, down 54% from this year’s pre-election audience, the Nielsen Array company said. For the same comparison period, CNN’s average audience of 405,000 decreased by 45%.
On Fox News Channel, a news network favored by Trump fans, the post-election average of 2. 68 million viewers was up 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 crisis for wasted candidate enthusiasts is not a new trend for networks that have become strongly known as a partisan audience. MSNBC experienced similar turmoil after Trump’s election in 2016. The same happened with Fox in 2020, it was confused by anger: many of its viewers were outraged by the channel’s important call in Arizona for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and looked for alternatives.
MSNBC had its own anger issues after several “Morning Joe” viewers became angry that hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited Trump shortly after his victory last month. However, while the show’s viewership has fallen by 35% since Election Day, this drop is less than the channel’s prime-time drop.
CNN notes that while TV ratings have suffered, their virtual and streaming audiences have remained steady.
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 back once the clown show starts,” Aunallah said. “You don’t have a selection. Whether you hear it or not, it’s happening. If you care about your country, you don’t have a selection yet to pay attention to.
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 in his first term. People are also disconnecting from cable TV at an immediate pace, even though MSNBC believes it has already resisted this trend that was eroding audiences.
The vote indicates that Americans are less interested in having public figures in general talk about politics. After an election season in which celebrities like Taylor Swift made headlines, the poll found that Americans are more likely to disapprove than they approve of celebrities, big business, and professional athletes who are explicitly vocal in politics.
Still, Gude is among those discovering other ways to get news to which he does want to pay attention, including on YouTube.
MSNBC is also in the middle of some corporate upheaval that raises questions about potential changes. Parent company Comcast announced last month that the cable network is among some properties that will spin off into a new company, which will give MSNBC new corporate leadership and cut its ties to NBC News.
Some of the Americans who have turned away from political news in recent years also had some recommendations for how to re-engage with it.
Gude said, for example, that MSNBC will have a hardcore audience of Trump haters. But if the network needs to expand its audience, “then we will 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, likewise, is in favor of more intensity and variety. He’s no longer interested in “seeing the angry 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 December 5-9, 2024, a pattern drawn from NORC’s probability test.
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