TV Ratings Declined for Trump’s State of the Union Speech

“It’s a pretty dramatic and grave moment, and as far as the political impact, I think you’d have to say that Donald Trump is better off now than he was when this impeachment process began,” the anchor Chris Wallace said on Fox News afterward.

On MSNBC, post-acquittal, the mood was melancholic.

“The stain will always be on this presidency,” said Eugene Robinson, a political analyst and Washington Post columnist. Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic Missouri senator, commended politically vulnerable Democrats who voted guilty for their “courageous stand,” adding, “I’m very proud of them all.”

The final vote was preceded by another dose of TV drama, when Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, revealed that he would vote to convict Mr. Trump on both counts.

Mr. Romney, it emerged, had taped a sit-down with Mr. Wallace on Fox News earlier on Wednesday morning and granted advance interviews about his decision to The Atlantic and The New York Times, among a handful of news outlets. It was a deft public-relations move by Mr. Romney, the former Republican presidential nominee, that apparently caught the White House off guard.

The static, lo-fi images of the Senate floor vote were in stark contrast to the high production values of Mr. Trump’s State of the Union, where cameras swooped above the audience and zoomed in on the facial reactions of politicians.

That was because the Republican Senate leadership restricted television coverage of their proceedings to in-house, government-controlled cameras, rather than allowing independent news outlets like C-SPAN to cover the trial.

As for the State of the Union, Nielsen said that social media engagement with the speech peaked just after its conclusion, at 10:31 p.m., when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up her copy of the president’s speech in full view of the cameras — her own contribution to the evening’s series of meme-worthy moments.

John Koblin contributed reporting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/business/media/trump-state-of-the-union-ratings.html?emc=rss&partner=rss