"Mainstream Media" Self Parody: DNC Convention Edition
Polipundit blog
In 2000, a grand total of 17.2 million Americans, on average, watched the Democratic National Convention, on the three big TV Networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS.
In 2004, however, a grand total of only 13.8 million Americans, on average, watched the Democratic National Convention, on those same three TV Networks.
That is an outright decline of roughly 20 percent, merely over the course of four years!
And, since the population of voting-age Americans obviously has increased over the past four years -- by literally millions upon millions of persons -- when the stunning decline in the Networks' DNC Nomination ratings is considered more closely, and on a population-adjusted basis, their situation goes from bad to, well, frankly, all the way to self-parody!
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Also, I could not help but notice that, even when the 24-hour cable news networks are added to the mix (CNN, Fox, MSNBC), the total number of viewers of John Kerry's Nominating Convention fell by roughly 9 percent, when compared to Al Gore's Convention, back in 2000. And, again, that's not even adjusted for population gains; which, of course, would make the real decline even steeper.
So, therefore, the media's constant admonitions to us about how "fired up" and "motivated" the Democrats are this year, and how angry at Bush the rest of the electorate is, and how "bitterly divided" the electorate is, that all has to be true, right? I mean, obviously, people are so desperate to hear what Senator Kerry will do as President, that hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of them, even those who tuned into Al Gore, did not bother even glancing at this most recent Convention of the Democratic Party.
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