(FiveNation.com)- In an op-ed at the Daily Caller, writer Kay Smythe argues that since CNN’s ratings cratered once Donald Trump left the White House, the only thing that kept the cable network afloat was Trump.
Smythe notes that CNN finished 2022 with record-low ratings.
In 2022, CNN’s total viewership dropped by 27 percent from 2021, with an average total viewership of only 568,000 a day. In the 25-54 demo, CNN saw its worst average day viewership since tracking began in 1992, falling to only 120,000 average viewers.
Smythe contends that CNN’s ratings collapse last year was due in large part to Donald Trump’s absence from the White House, jokingly saying that the former president may be the only one who can “save the dying network.”
Last month, Trump posted on Truth Social that both CNN and MSNBC were in a ratings freefall because they never talk about him. Smythe suggests that Trump may have had a point.
She notes that under CNN’s new president Chris Licht, the network’s overall profitability has reportedly dropped below $1 billion. She contends that deprived of their favorite arch-villain, CNN, along with MSNBC and other corporate media giants “don’t have anything entertaining or interesting to offer the American public.”
Smythe notes that after Biden’s first 100 days in office, the Daily Caller conducted an analysis of the corporate media which found that CNN and other corporate media giants “absolutely depend on Trump for their ratings.”
Before the 2020 election, Donald Trump predicted that he would be reelected because the media’s ratings would go “down the tubes” without him. Smythe argues that Trump was right.
Smythe closes by presenting two possible options for CNN’s future. Either it will continue to exist or it will be forced to merge “with the other dwindling, archaic networks” whose ratings are also crashing.
Ultimately, she writes, it won’t matter “because no one cares.”
