political conventions

Fox News dominated ratings for the Republican convention, and MSNBC was the clear No. 1 for the Democrats’ gathering.

Not only did Fox News pull in the biggest audience for the first night of the Republican convention, but the network scored more viewers than they did four years ago for the opening of the 2016 event. According to Nielsen Media Research data, Fox News averaged 7.063 million total viewers from 10 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET, an 11% jump from 2016, when it pulled brought in 6.348 million viewers for the opening night of the RNC that first nominated Donald Trump to be president.

Day One of the Republican National Convention featured a complaint about his coverage by President Donald Trump, some aggressive fact-checking by television reporters and an odd social media backlash against Fox News Channel, the favorite network of the president’s fans. Above, Donald Trump Jr., is seen on a video monitor as he tapes his speech for the first day of the Republican National Convention from the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington.

A well-produced, moving, often inspirational new summer television special aired last week, filled with tears, laughter, passion and pathos. It was called the Democratic National Convention. And that’s the problem. The convention — radically altered to conform with our COVID-dominated times — was the final triumph of TV values in the world of politics and news: feelings over facts, images over words, personality over policy.

Fox News is providing an hour of convention news coverage each night, the same as broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC. But as cable rivals CNN and MSNBC devote three hours in primetime to the convention — including showing the Democrats’ feed virtually uninterrupted — Fox will not dislodge its biggest opinion stars: Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.

The Disney-owned network drew 2.1 million total viewers to its 10 p.m. coverage of the convention, and scored a 0.3 rating among adults 18-49. NBC tied in the demo, but came second with 1.9 million viewers. CBS lagged behind in the third with a 0.2 rating and 1.7 million total viewers. That gives a total of around 5.8 million viewers across all three, which is around half the viewership from the last convention.

Typical conventions have moments for television analysts to comfortably opine, when there’s a set change, a boring speaker who drones on too long or lengthy applause by delegates. Yet there were fewer obvious moments to slip away Monday. CNN and MSNBC essentially sidelined their onscreen talent to show virtually all the production. Others missed moments in order to get in some words edgewise. Above, the control room where live feeds are managed in operation for the first night of the virtual DNC convention at the Wisconsin Center on Aug. 17 in Milwaukee.

At the first widely televised political convention in 1948, a smiling Clare Boothe Luce stepped to the microphone with her blonde curls and white pearls shining under the bright lights. To delegates inside Philadelphia’s Municipal Auditorium, the former Republican congresswoman looked perfect. But on black-and-white television screens, “her face, hair and dress were all one washed-out color and her gestures seeming ill-matched and awkward,” one columnist wrote. This week, TV networks will be facing new kinds of challenges adjusting convention coverage because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman will be speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night. She’s one of four current or former Republicans who will be speaking at the convention this week.

The standard political gatherings that were to unfold for the Democratic Party in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and for the GOP in Charlotte, North Carolina, will be largely virtual, constrained by the coronavirus. That won’t stop TV scrutiny of the speeches and other activities leading up to Joe Biden’s Democratic Party nomination for president on Thursday, Aug. 20, and the GOP’s renomination of President Donald Trump the following week.

News executives are adjusting on the fly to nominating conventions for President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden that will be primarily virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic. Much of what is planned is still a mystery, particularly for the Republicans.

Station groups say they will send fewer correspondents to August’s largely virtualized political conventions and centralize their reporting resources. At the same time, they see local coverage opportunities of the conventions expanding, largely down to use of the remote production technology they’ve already been mastering for months during the pandemic.

After a venue change, spiking coronavirus cases and a sharp recession, Trump aides and allies are increasingly questioning whether it’s worth the trouble, and some are advocating that the convention be scrapped altogether. Conventions are meant to lay out a candidate’s vision for the coming four years, not spark months of intrigue over the health and safety of attendees, they have argued. Ultimately, the decision on whether to move forward will be Trump’s alone.

CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are in talks to coordinate pool coverage to reduce the number of journalists in potentially infectious areas.

Louis Libin, chairman of Election Wireless 2020, coordinates wireless requirements for broadcasters at the upcoming conventions, debates and election night. He says the repack has made assigning spectrum more challenging than ever, and that broadcasters must temper their expectations relative to past years.