Knowingly or not, Trump has played the media like a fiddle, giving them tons of useless grist in which to spin their wheels in exchange for the equivalent of a Billion dollars in media time which he has used shrewdly to build up his base.
1. Trump himself leaked the Access Hollywood recording; and
2. There was nothing relevant in the Access Hollywood recording.
The Access Hollywood recording came out at the beginning of this month, so I'm not sure if that's the one you're referring to.
Here's a great cap of it at the end of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPnMfSJ_qis - skip to 1:50. You can even hear the studio crew start laughing as they realise they've been played.