Back in 2011, former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Zucker told an audience of television-management students at Drexel University that he greenlit Donald Trump \u2019s \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d because he knew the real-estate mogul would be a \u201cwrecking publicity machine\u201d for the reality-competition series. \u201cEven if the show wasn\u2019t good, he was going to say it was good,\u201d Zucker said. \u201cEven if the ratings weren\u2019t good, he was going to say that the ratings were great.\u201d
He added, \u201cNobody could generate publicity like Donald Trump.\u201d
That remains true today. And now that Trump is in the White House, he is using the same tools that he employed in service of his reality-TV show to promote his presidency.
Trump\u2019s first week in office saw his press secretary engage a reporter in a back-and-forth over multi-platform viewership measurement; the president tweet congratulations Fox News for beating rival CNN in Nielsen ratings; and the White House issue a press release that, like an Emmy campaign ad, presented an onslaught of laudatory quotes attesting to the new administration\u2019s superior quality. (\u201cThe Atlantic: Trump\u2019s \u2018Coming Out As A Winner On Many Issues.’\u201d)
Why White House Claims About Donald Trump\u2019s Inauguration Ratings Are Wrong, Too
\u201cHe\u2019s not really talking about anything else other than what he\u2019s doing and what other people are saying about what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Lawrence Epstein, a former CBS News finance director who now teaches at Drexel, told Variety. \u201cIf you\u2019re marketing a television show, especially a new television show, that\u2019s what you want to do. You don\u2019t want the attention to be focused on [anything else], so you\u2019re not going to comment about it. You\u2019re going to talk about what\u2019s new and exciting about your show.\u201d
Trump is adept at driving the conversation back to himself. Saturday, as millions of demonstrators marched around the country to protest his day-old presidency, Trump dispatched press secretary Sean Spicer to the White House briefing room to falsely dispute accurate reports that Friday\u2019s inauguration had drawn a smaller crowd than Barack Obama\u2019s in 2009. The move effectively drew press attention away from the march, as some networks cut live to Spicer and his comments dominated discussion on the Sunday-morning public-affairs shows. After Spicer addressed reporters, Ari Fleischer, CNN commentator and former White House press secretary under George W. Bush, tweeted, \u201cThis is called a statement you\u2019re told to make by the President. And you know the President is watching.\u201d
On Monday, Spicer returned to the briefing room to take questions from the press for the first time. When confronted about his false crowd-size claims, Spicer pivoted to viewership, asserting incorrectly that Trump\u2019s inauguration was watched more than Obama\u2019s or Ronald Reagan\u2019s. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure that Reagan didn\u2019t have YouTube, Facebook, or the internet,\u201d Spicer said, arguing that a combination of the 30.7 million total television viewers of inauguration coverage reported by Nielsen and the 16.9 million digital views reported by CNN eclipsed all previous presidents\u2019 inaugurals. In reality, the Nielsen number is an average of total viewers per minute and the CNN number is a tally of video starts \u2014 two distinct measurements that count two very different things.
Trump is a connoisseur of TV ratings, and a master at spinning them. When he hosted \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d he was known to call trade reporters the day after episodes aired to kibitz about ratings. Speaking at the Television Critics Association press tour in 2015, Trump claimed \u2014 incorrectly \u2014 that when \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d aired back-to-back episodes, the second hour was \u201cthe number-one show on television,\u201d and was only denied that crown because Nielsen categorized the two hours as one episode. When pressed on that claim, he said that he meant \u201cfor that night\u201d on which it aired.
Throughout his campaign for the presidency, Trump\u2019s fixation on ratings asserted itself as he spoke about his role as a draw for CNN and bragged about viewership for debates. It hasn\u2019t abated since he was sworn in as president. On Tuesday, Trump tweeted, \u201cCongratulations to @FoxNews for being number one in inauguration ratings. They were many times higher than FAKE NEWS @CNN \u2013 public is smart!\u201d In doing so, he used ratings to undermine the credibility of CNN, a network he loathes, and boost Fox News, whose coverage of him he has endorsed.
That\u2019s not far off from the way that network PR departments use ratings. And like Spicer, those PR departments are known to conflate digital and linear viewership numbers to give an inflated view of a show\u2019s popularity. \u201cOne thing about the way that people use research to promote their success is that they\u2019re not necessarily saying that their comparison is meaningful,\u201d Epstein said. \u201cIn that sense, there is commonality with the way television promotes itself.\u201d
And ratings spin is not the only TV tactic in the White House toolkit. A release issued Friday featured 16 positive quotes about Trump from media outlets such as the Atlantic, the Chicago Tribune, and Politico \u2014 presenting them much in the same way that Hollywood awards-season campaigns feature critics\u2019 blurbs.
\u201cI\u2019m sure our founding fathers never could have dreamed we\u2019d be seeing award campaign-style review quotes used as praise for the President of the United States,\u201d said Richard Licata, a former chief public-relations executive for NBC and Showtime, now head of awards-season strategy agency Licata & Co. \u201cBut why wouldn\u2019t we think that something new and audacious like that couldn\u2019t be applied to politics?\u201d
Licata added, \u201cLike some kind of perpetual awards season, President Trump is already running the most aggressive for-your-consideration campaign of all time.\u201d
And that campaign is coming from a president who has complained about elections and Emmy votes being rigged against him.<\/p>\n

\n

\nSimilarity rank: 3.3\n<\/div>\n

Sentiment rank: 0<\/div>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n