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The TV Ratings Comparing Trump & Obama’s SOTU Speeches Are In…

The TV Ratings Comparing Trump & Obama’s SOTU Speeches Are In…

The reality TV presidency just hit a major snag after overnight ratings show that Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress had a whopping 17% smaller rating than President Obama’s first nationally televised speech in 2009.

Donald Trump is well known for obsessing over TV ratings, even going out his way to attack the new host of his old reality TV series, the Celebrity Apprentice – which to this day is still making him millions of dollars – and so he’s going to be furious when he hears about these numbers:

Never dubbed a State of the Union for a first-year, first-term president, the address to the joint sessions of congress is nevertheless a huge event — often a bigger one than subsequent SOTUs. President Barack Obama averaged 52.4 million viewers (initially a 33.4 overnight rating) across networks when he spoke in 2009, when the country was suffering from a recession. His subsequent addresses never reached that height.

The event predictably topped the night’s few other telecasts, grossing just more than 43 million viewers on eight networks airing coverage between 9 and 10:15 p.m. ET. On par with early metered market stats, a cumulative 27.8 overnight rating among households, it’s still a ways off from President Barack Obama’s first joint sessions meeting — or even his first State of the Union. Compared to Obama’s first address in 2009, Trump’s pull is down by 17 percent.

Trump’s dreadful presidency has been just as awful as the one horribly sexist program he tried producing on his own. In fact, Trump only managed to avoid a major lawsuit in reality TV by totally screwing the “contestants” on his show with unfair contracts and transporting his talent across international lines so he could get away with underpaying a group of women to embarrass themselves on MTV.

For America’s sake, it would be best if the Trump Administration finds itself canceled after one short season for bad ratings, just like his failed reality TV show.

Grant Stern
is the Executive Editor of Occupy Democrats and published author. His new Meet the Candidates 2020 book series is distributed by Simon and Schuster. He's also mortgage broker, community activist and radio personality in Miami, Florida., as well as the producer of the Dworkin Report podcast. Grant is also an occasional contributor to Raw Story, Alternet, and the DC Report, and an unpaid senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization. Get all of his stories sent directly to your inbox here:

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