President Obama’s town hall on gun violence was such a huge hit with younger viewers that it drew a larger younger audience than Fox News, MSNBC, and Headline News combined.
TVNewser reported:
CNN’s Guns in America town hall special featuring President Obama and moderated by Anderson Cooper won its cable news time period last night in the A25-54 demo. With 842,000, the CNN special averaged more younger viewers than Fox News, MSNBC and HLN combined (762,000) at 8 p.m. ET.
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The town hall was up +372 percent and the post-show +241 percent among the demo 25-54 vs. CNN’s prior four Thursdays. The special helped give CNN a rare demo win for prime time and total day viewing.
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Fox News drew more overall viewers, but the fact that Obama drew such a large younger audience to CNN suggests that the reasons why younger viewers aren’t tuning into cable news have more to do with content than demographics. Audience data for 2015 revealed that younger viewers are still refusing to watch Fox News. The average age of a Fox News viewer was 69 years old. CNN was the only cable news network that saw their average viewer age drop to 59.
The success of President Obama’s town hall on gun violence is proof that the cable news networks could attract younger viewers if they would stop catering to the old white Republicans who are watching Fox News. There is a huge younger more liberal-leaning audience of news consumers who are being ignored by the cable news networks. President Obama can still draw younger viewers, and more younger people would rather watch Obama talk about gun violence than hear crazy grandpa Bill O’Reilly complain to “the folks” about things were better in the good old days.
President Obama went head to head with Fox News, and he attracted the sort of viewers that won’t go near the cable news ratings leader. Fox News is slowly dying of old age because younger people have no interest in anything that they have to say. Fox News by winning the present, but Obama beat Fox with the audience of the future.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
