How the networks are fighting over Trump — and profiting handsomely from it

How the networks are fighting over Trump — and profiting handsomely from it

by digby

I wrote about the sick, symbiotic relationship between Trump and the news networks for Salon today. An excerpt:

When a recent Rolling Stone profile of Trump was released, the press went wild with a couple of outrageous quotes, one about Fiorina’s looks and another about how attractive he finds his daughter. These are creepy, off-color comments at best and ended up accruing to Fiorina’s benefit in the CNN debate, where she deftly turned it back on him. But the article had another series of quotes the media didn’t mention which show some intriguing insights into Trump’s strategy:

“I thought I’d have spent $10 million on ads, when so far I’ve spent zero. I’m on TV so much, it’d be stupid to advertise. Besides, the shows are more effective than ads.”

He’s right, isn’t he? Ads can have an effect. But getting the chance to talk for hours at a time, uninterrupted, on all three networks is much more valuable.

He admits that you have to build a team on the ground and says he’s got “huge, phenomenal” teams staffing up the first seven states. But he adds:

“I know that costs money, but I’ve got this, believe me. Remember: The two biggest costs in a presidential run are ads and transportation. Well, I own two planes and a Sikorsky chopper, so I’d say I’m pretty well covered there, wouldn’t you?”

The article goes on to speculate just how much money Trump can really afford to spend and while it’s surely enough, the question remains if he wants to spend it. His history suggests that one of the business lessons he’s learned over the years is not to expose his own fortune to too much risk. So we’ll see if he ever actually starts writing big checks. But it’s his insight into the world of TV and how to manipulate it that’s truly interesting.

I think there is probably a lot of handwringing going on behind the scenes at the news networks over their Trump coverage. Some serious journalists undoubtedly think it’s insane to spend so much time covering his every bizarre utterance. But the people who look at the ratings obviously see something different. The first Republican debate drew 24 million viewers. The second drew 22 million.(This article from CNN Money explains that the drop off from the first is not because of less interest but because the debate was 3 hours long compared to 2.) Primary debates at this point in the 2011-2012 campaign cycle averaged 4 to 5 million viewers each. And nobody doubts that the reason people are tuning in to primary politics in such vast numbers so early in the cycle is because of one reason and one reason only: Donald Trump.

And as Michael Wolff wrote in this piece for the Hollywood Reporter, however he shakes out for the GOP, there’s simply no doubt that Trump has brought big bucks to television this summer. But it’s a mixed blessing for the network that created Republican TV:

[E]ven with such additional riches at Fox, the network suddenly finds itself in a deeply unsettled world. Trump is not one more product or reflection of the Fox News media philosophy and of its hold on the Republican party. Rather, Trump is the first Republican in the Fox age, who — in a weird sort of justice that liberal Fox haters might come to rue — threatens to break the network’s hold on the Republican party and the discipline it has imposed on it. At best, Trump negotiates with Fox on an equal footing. Arguably, he dominates it, demanding it dance to his tune.

And dance to his tune they have done. We’ve never seen Roger Ailes so pliable before in the face of a Republican candidate who defies his power. But he has a big problem he’s never had before. Wolff points out that up until now Fox has defined the GOP brand and maintained a strong hold on its identity but Trump may be breaking that dominance:

Disorientingly, Trump is as much the candidate of CNN as he is of Fox, as much a friend of CNN chief Jeff Zucker as he is of Fox’s Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly, as much a golden goose for Zucker as for Ailes. Indeed, Zucker’s star rises at CNN and within its parent Time Warner along with Trump’s. It is, of course, Zucker who, while running NBC, commissioned The Apprentice and its offshoots, transforming Trump from a local New York personality to national phenomenon. (Piers Morgan, the former CNN host who regularly had Trump as one of his highest-rated guests, was a winner of Celebrity Apprentice.)

Interesting, no?

So Trump is playing Fox and CNN off of each other and getting so much free airtime in the process he has no need to run any ads. But with the ratings bonanza he’s creating, these news networks have no complaints about that. It is a very mutually beneficial arrangement.

Read the whole thing. Wolff says Trump isn’t really a political story at all but rather a political version of the Malaysian Airlines story. It’s an interesting take on this phenomenon.