FOX News gained 700,000 viewers during Trump’s victory speech in Florida, and lost one million immediately after it ended.
The speech was covered by FOX, CNN, and MSNBC at 9 p.m. EST. An average of 8.8 million people tuned in to these networks, compared with around 7.35 million during the hours immediately before and after.
Interestingly, FOX gained 700,000 viewers during the speech, topping at around 4.24 million, but lost over a million during the next hour. CNN gained 500,000 then lost 300,000. MSNBC gained 100,000 then lost the same amount.
Interpreting this data isn’t difficult. People tuned in by the thousands for no other reason than to see Trump speak. While the loss of one million viewers from FOX News can’t necessarily be attributed to Trump, it certainly makes for an amusing headline.
Trump: "This was an amazing evening, and I don't think I've ever had so many horrible, horrible things said about me in one week."
— USA TODAY Politics (@usatodayDC) March 9, 2016
Trump spent much of his speech highlighting his multitude of branded products. However, most of his highlights were completely baseless.
Among them include advertisements of Trump steaks (discontinued and replaced with another brand), Trump bottled water (actually bottled by the Village Springs Corporation), Trump vodka (discontinued in 2011, whose winery is unaffiliated with the Trump campaign), Trump Magazine (discontinued in 2009, and since replaced by an annual advertisement by one of his clubs), Trump airlines (defaulted and sold to USAir), and Trump University (currently the subject of a lawsuit alleging fraud).
The speech came after Trump won the primary elections in Hawaii, Michigan, and Mississippi. Trump supporters had been murmuring that he would need to win more states soon, citing his loss in Kansas and Maine last Saturday to Ted Cruz. Despite these losses and the Republican parties’ internal strife, Trump has won 14 states to date.
Featured image by Michael Vadon, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
