The last thing the press wants low-information voters to learn is that there has been far more interest in the contest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination than there has been in the Democrats'.
That disparity has naturally carried over into the size of the audience watching the respective parties' debates. Despite months of buildup to the first left-side debate of the season and relentless hype all week long in the establishment press, last night's Democratic debate drew an audience of only 15.3 million compared to 25 million and 23 million in the first two Republican debates. Naturally, CNNMoney's morning email had no interest in communicating that disappointing (to the left) reality:
After following the email's link, I found that CNNMoney's breaking news page also failed to mention the opening Dem debate's 40 percent smaller audience:
The underlying article delayed delivery of the bad (for the left) news for several paragraphs:
Democratic debate hits record 15.3 million viewers
CNN's Tuesday night debate averaged 15.3 million viewers, easily making it the highest-rated Democratic debate ever.
The total viewer number was much lower than the totals for both recent Republican debates, but there was still a surprising surge of interest in Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb's first time together on stage.
The 15.3 million total far exceeded most expectations, including among CNN executives.
For comparison's sake, the previous Democratic debate record was set in 2008, when Clinton and Barack Obama squared off in prime time on ABC. That debate had 10.7 million viewers.
Heading into Tuesday night, there was unanimous agreement that the total audience would be lower than the 25 million who tuned in for Fox's Republican debate on August 6. That debate -- fueled by Donald Trump -- shattered all previous primary debate records.
The Republican rematch on CNN September 16 averaged more than 23 million viewers, essentially confirming that the GOP debates are the highest-rated new "show" of the fall TV season.
CNN executives said the Republican and Democratic debates were "apples and oranges" and that they expected ratings for the Clinton-Sanders face-off to be on par with past Democratic debates.
But they outperformed. "This was the sixth highest non-sports cable telecast on record," a CNN press release said.
Sorry, guys. I'm not buying the after-the-fact expectations game. Coverage at the Politico two days ago indicated that CNN wasn't willing to quote a predicted number ahead of time. The advance excuses they trotted out in case of disappointment, like playoff baseball, were quite lame.
Let's instead imagine that viewership for the GOP debates was only 60 percent of that seen in the Dem debates. The press would be headlining such a disparity as "stark evidence" of "disinterest" and "apathy" in the center-right, and an indication that the candidates on the whole were too "far right" for their own good. I don't see why we can't say that last night's result indicates the same things about the Dems' five genuinely far-left candidates.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
