Media top headlines July 22
In media news today, Politico and CNN writers criticize Nancy Pelosi's rejection of GOP picks for riot committee, a former Google consultant give his opinion on how to combat misinformation, and WaPo's Josh Rogin says 'Fauci was wrong' about denying NIH funded Wuhan 'gain of function' COVID-19 research
CNN’s heavily promoted town hall event with President Biden failed to resonate with Americans on Wednesday night, as it got thumped by Fox News and even finished with a smaller audience than MSNBC.
The CNN Biden town hall, moderated by Don Lemon, averaged only 1.5 million viewers from 8-9:30 p.m. ET, while Fox News averaged 2.7 million viewers during the same time period. MSNBC averaged 1.6 million sets of eyeballs, which pushed CNN’s chat with the president to last place among relevant cable news stations.
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Fox News beat CNN by a staggering 83 percent during the Biden town hall with regular programing on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" and a special edition of "Hannity" that featured Florida Republicans Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Maria Salazar and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
President Joe Biden interacts with members of the audience during a commercial break for a CNN town hall at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Wednesday, July 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ((AP Photo/Andrew Harnik))
Every Fox News town hall event over the past five years outdrew Wednesday’s CNN event with Biden.
CNN’s town hall also failed to beat Fox News among the key demographic of adults age 25-54. CNN averaged 306,000 demo viewers during the event, compared to 464,000 for Fox News.
CNN didn’t just finish last during the Biden town hall. The liberal network also finished behind Fox News and MSNBC during the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET.
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Fox News averaged 2.3 million primetime viewers and MSNBC finished second with 1.6 million. Despite President Biden appearing on the network, CNN settled for only 1.3 million primetime viewers.
While Biden failed to lift the struggling network from last place, it did helped Lemon surpass the one-million viewer threshold that he fails to meet on a regular basis.
One interesting moment that was seen by CNN’s tiny audience was when Lemon referred to Biden as "the big guy" during the presidential town hall.
"You’ve been the big guy for six months now in the White House. Can you take us behind the scenes, something that was extraordinary or unusual that happened that stands out to you?" Lemon asked.
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"The big guy" was notably used as a reference to Biden in a leaked email thread allegedly involving Joe’s son Hunter Biden making a deal with a Chinese energy firm. In 2020, Fox News confirmed the authenticity of an email dated May 13, 2017 that detailed a discussion for "remuneration packages" for people involved in a business deal. A section of the email contained a propriety split reading "10 held by H for the big guy?" which was later confirmed to reference Joe Biden.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., remarked on this connection as well, tweeting, "Wow. Even Don Lemon knows Joe Biden is the "Big Guy"! #HuntersEmails."
All data is courtesy of early Nielsen Media Research
Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
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