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CNN ratings took a huge hit after President Trump left office and US politics became boring again. I predict that Chris Licht's successor will benefit from a ratings boost as Trump ramps up his media presence for the 2024 election cycle.

https://apnews.com/article/cnn-ratings-chris-licht-584ea2b45...

(I am not making a political comment here, just pointing out that CNN ratings are correlated with Trump's level of activity.)

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Yeah, TV news gets less eyeballs when it’s not a Presidential election year.

https://www.ft.com/content/85241de6-981c-433a-9ab8-6518021d0...

Trump was a bigger bump and a bigger hangover, but it’s a known pattern.

Which is my real “big media conspiracy”, which is barely a conspiracy: it’s hard to imagine substantial electoral when TV news is so dependent on this election year gusher of money. Especially at the local TV news level.

Reminds me of 2008 Dem primaries. It felt like the media wanted to keep reporting it as being a race between Obama and Hillary, because if they said the truth halfway through the race that "Yeah it's Obama's to win.", they'd get less viewers and less ad money (including political ones...)

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