Every presidential candidate is obsessed with polls, but only Donald Trump fixates on ratings. Not approval ratings, television ratings.Interesting, but I think she misses the point.
"I get the best ratings," he said recently, appearing to channel NBC executives to explain why he had been asked to host "Saturday Night Live" this weekend.
It's something Trump says a lot, almost as often as he says "I'm going to build a wall." In September, he warned that television itself would collapse should he withdraw from the race — no doubt something that he will be saying even more if he continues to lose his lead in the polls.
There is something quaint and almost endearing about Trump's faith in Nielsen; it may be one of the last great attempts to restore ratings to their former position of glory, and, indeed, empower them further.
But ratings have never been the same as votes — just ask the cast of "Empire" — or even political support, and for all his frequently self-referenced business experience, Trump seems to have missed a major shift in the television industry: Ratings ain't what they used to be.
Once an easy and instant predictor of success, the television numbers game has become if not outdated then deeply complicated. Judging from the awards bestowed in recent years, ratings have an almost antithetical relationship with voters' notions of "best" or "outstanding." A narrow but deeply dedicated group of followers is now deemed as valuable as a large, less passionate audience who may be tuned in more out of curiosity or habit.
Overnight ratings, which is what Trump deals in for the most part, have become less meaningful, and any gains he brings to shows like "Saturday Night Live" are one-time bumps rather than a business model; it's not as if he were joining the cast (or at least not yet.)
Like the current crop of Republican candidates, television is now too broad and disparate for its traditional measurements, making "success" an increasingly complicated term, gauged as much, if not more, in nuance than numbers.
And Donald Trump has never been big on nuance...
Candidates nowadays are looking to reach younger voters, especially Millennials, by appearing on late-night television. It's not just SNL --- which Hillary Clinton exploited to massive positive media spin of late --- but folks like Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert, etc. If campaigns didn't expect political dividends from such appearances they wouldn't schedule them.
But keep reading, in any case.
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