President Donald Trump Wednesday waded into a discussion of the second quarter’s cable news ratings, praising Fox News and disparaging MSNBC and CNN in spite of record growth from the two networks.
“Can’t believe how badly @CNN has done in the newly released TV ratings. They are so far below @FoxNews (thank you President Trump!) that you can barely find them. Fredo should be given a big pay cut! MSDNC also did poorly. As I have long said, Fake News does not pay!!!” wrote the president on Twitter. (“Fredo” refers to primetime anchor Chris Cuomo, who once publicly berated a man for calling him by the name.)
Trump went on, “Congratulations to @foxandfriends on completely dominating the just released morning TV Ratings. Morning Joke, staring Psycho Joe Scarborough on MSDNC, a Concast Company, was a disaster. Even worse was the barely registering @CNN mess!”
Homebound viewers handed all three major cable news networks big ratings rewards in the second quarter of 2020, though Fox News pulled in the most viewers overall with a quarterly daily average of 1.96 million.
In total, according to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News secured 1,958,000 total average viewers per day in Q2. MSNBC was in second place with 1.21 million while CNN brought in 1.19,000. All three channels had their highest-rated quarters in history.
CNN’s public relations team responded to Trump Wednesday morning: “This is exhausting. But @PressSec says you can read and also consume intelligence verbally. So consider reading this or asking one of your staffers to read it aloud to you: Q2 of 2020 was the Most-Watched Quarter in CNN’s 40 Year History.”