• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, May 3, 2017

Despite his best anti-media efforts, President Trump has done the reverse of what was intended in characterizing established TV news networks and media organizations.

Many companies have posted big gains in viewing/readership and advertising. It's also upped brand equity among specific politically oriented consumers, and even some not-so-obvious ones: conservative-leaning consumers.

A new Harris Poll says rising brand equity for many TV networks and print-based media organizations comes among liberal-leaning people — CNN (up 7 points), New York Times (adding 10 points), Washington Post (2 point gain), and MSNBC (also up 2 points).

Fox News Channel dropped 6 points for these consumers.

This finding came from an overall Harris Poll EquiTrend Brand Equity study, where an index is calculated from three factors: familiarity, quality and purchase consideration. The survey grabbed research from more than 100,000 consumers between December 30, 2016 and February 21, 2017 who access 4,000 brand across more than 450 categories.

At the same time, the survey said, conservative-leaning political citizens -- while offering sinking brand equity marks among virtually all TV/media news organizations, including the conservative-minded Fox News (a 5 points drop) --  gave some positive results in perhaps an usual area: radio, NPR in particular.  

Conservative-minded consumers increased support of NPR by two points between 2015 and 2017. Liberal-minded consumers also rose brand equity support for NPR during that period.

Is this because the longtime national radio news organization is “balanced” and “fair” -- adjectives which seem quaint in these digital media days? Maybe the morning and evening news commuter drive — where many radio listeners consume radio content more introspectively — has sometime to do with it.

All this turns its back on big-time tweets/messages from our chief news watcher about the quality of TV/media news. President Trump may not know exactly what “news” organizations mean to voters -- all kinds of voters.

It has a note of irony, since the Trump Administration aired a self-congratulatory TV commercial on some networks -- Fox News, for one -- that points fingers at news organizations he feels aren’t doing a good job.

He calls them, you know, the “F” word. U.S. voters may disagree; maybe using other words.