As TV viewer, Trump focusing on Fox
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s TV-viewing habits have changed since he became president — networks he views as hostile have fallen out of favor, Fox News is in heavy rotation — creating an unusually close relationship between a president and a news outlet.
Long a voracious consumer of cable news, Trump has cut back how much he watches CNN and MSNBC in recent weeks, having sworn off the latter network’s “Morning Joe” after criticism from its hosts, according to a senior White House aide privy to the president’s viewing habits.
Instead, the president now spends hours some mornings watching Fox News, switching occasionally to CNBC for business headlines, along with a daily diet of newspapers and press clippings, said the official, who asked not to be identified. On the evenings when he doesn’t have a dinner or briefing, Trump will spend most of his TVviewing time watching Fox News shows hosted by Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, the aide said.
Trump has heartily endorsed Fox News on Twitter and in various public statements, and some of its programming has even influenced his communications with the public, mostly through tweets. Several examples have emerged of Trump apparently seeing something on Fox — crime rates in Chicago, an incident in Sweden — only to tweet about it moments later.
Trump has endorsed morning show “Fox & Friends” to his millions of Twitter followers. He tweeted on Feb. 15: “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!”
And in turn, all the attention from Trump has coincided with higher viewership. Cable news networks have enjoyed higher-than-normal postelection audiences because of intense interest in the Trump presidency, and Fox News continues to lead the pack. Ratings were up 31 percent in February from a year earlier. CNN’s ratings are up 27 percent.
Higher ratings mean Fox News, CNN and MSNBC can charge more for TV commercials. Being the president’s preferred network can add to Fox News’s allure for advertisers.
“If you’re a lobbying outfit, buying commercials on Fox News may be as effective as campaign donations to the right member of Congress,” said Mark Feldstein, a broadcast journalism professor at the University of Maryland.
That’s already happening. In a memo to board members last month, Mark Merritt, president of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a health-industry lobbying group, wrote, “Given the president’s interest in a select number of news programs, PCMA will also explore other forms of advertising that target those particular venues.”
Trump continues to read The New York Times daily despite criticizing the newspaper’s coverage of him, the aide said. Trump also reads The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post each morning along with press clips that he is given by aides from a range of sources, the official said.
Barack Obama and George W. Bush rarely watched television news. Bush relied heavily on his staff to brief him on media coverage, while Obama would spend hours reading magazines and newspapers on his iPad.