Commentary

Presidential TV Fatigue: What Comes Next For News Networks?

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 24, 2025

A Presidential inauguration isn't what it used to be -- at least when compared to its earned media TV exposure.

The second inauguration of President Trump earlier this week limped into U.S. TV viewers' homes with a weak 24.6 million Nielsen-measured average viewers.

This was not only down 27% from President Biden’s 2021 inauguration at 33.8 million, but also 20% lower than the 30.6 million total for Trump's first inauguration in 2017.

The 2025 event was aired by 15 networks, compared to 17 networks in 2021 and 12 in 2017.

Many younger viewers tuned away, as did a lot of key viewers age 55 and up, who were down 16% to 17.5 million versus the total for Biden’s inauguration (20.9 million) and down 9% compared to 2017 for Trump (19.2 million).

Typically, second Presidential administration inaugurations always post lower TV viewers. Brand awareness of those public officials -- and what they are all about -- is already high.

This time, there might be increased fatigue, perhaps spilling over from the long Trump campaign rallies toward the end of the 2024 campaign year, where supporters could be seen walking out of events.

In addition, the year-long hyper-focused Presidential campaign 2024 year of political news could account for much of this late-year fatigue heading into January.

Consider this: Election night TV viewing in November was down 25% to 42.3 million versus 2020. Mostly younger 18-54 viewers (15.8 million) fell most steeply -- 37%.

This followed a heavy campaign year, where the total average prime-time viewership among the three big news networks -- Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN -- witnessed a 15% increase from the year before of 4.3 million versus 3.7 million. (Of course, 2023 was a non-political year.)

Total day TV news viewership among the three networks was up a modest 10% to 2.7 million.

Lastly, consider this: While Trump got 77.3 million votes (49.8%) and former Vice President Harris got 75.0 million (48.3%), there were some 89.3 million eligible voters -- 36% of all eligible voters -- who did not vote in the Presidential election.

That number is up from 80.9 million in 2020 and down slightly from 92.0 million in 2016.

Can TV networks -- overall -- figure out a way to attract more of those eye-rolling voters?

awareness, earned media, media measurement, nielsen, politics, ratings, television

2 comments about "Presidential TV Fatigue: What Comes Next For News Networks?".

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John Westra from Vuturus, January 24, 2025 at 2:59 p.m.
TV (Mainstream Media) Fatigue Evident Viewers "Elect" Alternative Channelsi

This is a more accurate headline, to describe the phenomenon of viewers, many of them Gen Z, who abandoned Mainstream Media TV sources, in favor of watching President Trump's second inauguration via streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Rumble and X.

All these platforms experienced record inauguration viewership, reflected in these peak viewership numbers:
- YouTube 704,798
- Twitch 117,681
- Rumble 66,200
"Thanks to the inauguration coverage, the News & Politics section on YouTube set new all-time viewership records. During the ceremony, peak viewership in the section hit 9,691,679, with 2,727 channels streaming at the peak. Both of these numbers became records for the category."

According to StreamsCharts, Donald Trump's Inauguration had a combined concurrent viewership across platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Rumble, Gab, and X that surpassed 38 Million at peak during the inauguration ceremony. This figure, they report, is derived from publicly visible platform statistics—like concurrent viewer counts—and from platform-specific APIs when available.

The question "Can TV networks -- overall -- figure out a way to attract more of those eye rolling votors," depends on whether they can ever recover from their horrific track record as Propagandists and Disinformation outlets for the Left. Based on their post election/inauguration performances thus far, I don't see that happening any time soon.

This trend will continue, enabled by an ever greater array of Citizen Journalist-powered, real-time, on-the-ground reporting, collected, enhanced and viewed using immersive technologies like #VR & #AR. The combination of these forces are a death nell for mainstream media as we know it. I for one say, good riddance!
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Robert Rose from AIM Tell-A-Vision, January 30, 2025 at 9:59 a.m.

It's depressing to watch the descent into madness by 33% of the country as they pretend 1/6/21 was a "lovefest" or didn't happen and that any medium that follows journalistic standards is a "propagandists" for the "left" (AKA anyone who doesn't agree with the warped MAGA POV is a Marxists...you know people like John McCain or Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney.. all Marxist). John W.'s opinion is a great example of the power of belief in this cultish behavior. It's been enabled by FNC for decades but now, with social media amplification, continued russian bot farm accounts and the bending of the knee by some morally challenged, mainstream outlets with billionaire owners, the US is now headed toward a dystopian Oligarchy at an incredibly fast clip where the unqualified run the departments they wish to destroy. All with the help and support of 33% of the nation, most of whom haven't read a book, are completely unaware of history and are glued to their phones or FNC all day like zombies. We are toasts. Why would I tune in to see that?