Media Suffering 'Trump Slump' As Tweets And Shock Value Lose Impact

Attitude meets attention span. JL


Sara Fisher and Neal Rothschild report in Axios:

Digital demand for Trump-related content (number of article views compared to number of articles written) has dropped 29% between the first 6 months of the Trump presidency and the most recent 6 months. The shock factor around Trump's unplanned announcements, staff departures, taunting tweets and erratic behavior is wearing off, and media companies are scrambling to find their next big moneymaker. The Trump bump that supported the news industry is not sustainable, and media companies once reliant on politics coverage are going to have to pivot.

Top news executives tell Axios that a real "Trump slump" is hitting digital, cable and more.

Why it matters: The shock factor around President Trump's unplanned announcements, staff departures, taunting tweets and erratic behavior is wearing off, and media companies are scrambling to find their next big moneymaker.

Driving the news: Executives tell Axios that Trump fatigue is very real: Interest in political coverage overall is down, which is spurring investments in other beats, like technology and the global economy.

• Democrats don't appear to be the lifeline media companies are hoping can fill the gap for diminished Trump interest. Executives say they expect this week’s debate ratings to be nothing like the ratings for the 2016 Trump debates.

Be smart: Part of the problem is that 2020 Democrats don't have a knock-out media star to drive interest in the election. To date, the Democrats' biggest media attraction has been Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who isn't running for president.

• Other candidates split the spotlight in the crowded Democratic primary field.

By the numbers: Digital demand for Trump-related content (number of article views compared to number of articles written) has dropped 29% between the first 6 months of the Trump presidency and the most recent 6 months, according to data from traffic analytics company Parse.ly.

• Evidence that Trump's social media star power was also beginning to wear off surfaced last month, when Axios reported that his tweets were receiving less than half the engagement that they got when he first took office.

Similar trends are happening in more traditional media settings:

• In March, New York Times COO Meredith Kopit Levien told Axios during a panel at SXSW that the paper's subscription "Trump Bump” ended in mid-2018.
• In December, media research firm MoffettNathanson found that live news network ratings were down "in the -10% to -20% range" for the better part of 2018. Overall, the firm found that ratings around TV news coverage overall began to decline after the 2016 election.
• Cable TV networks, which still reach a majority of Americans with political news coverage, began pulling back on Trump campaign rallies late last year because they weren't driving ratings, according to Politico.

Our thought bubble: The Trump bump that supported the news industry through difficult economic times is not sustainable, and media companies that were once reliant on politics coverage to get through tough times are going to have to pivot.

President Trump's tweets don't pack the punch they did at the outset of his presidency. His Twitter interaction rate — a measure of the impact given how much he tweets and how many people follow him — has tumbled precipitously, according to data from CrowdTangle.

Why it matters: It's a sign that his strongest communication tool may be losing its effectiveness and that the novelty has worn off.

Trump's interaction rate has fallen from 0.55% in the month he was elected to 0.32% in June 2017 — and down to 0.16% this month through May 25. (The metric measures retweets and likes per tweet divided by the size of his following.)

Data: CrowdTangle; Note: Interaction rate is retweets plus likes per tweet divided by total followers. Explore the tweets that got the most interactions by month here; Chart: Naema Ahmed/Axios

Trump's lines of attack have been repeated so much that they don't shock anymore, says Toronto Star Washington bureau chief Daniel Dale.

• Because norm-breaking tweets have become the new norm, Dale says, he doesn't cover them as often — and therefore, casual readers hear about them less.

Attacking the Mueller investigation went from scandalous to routine for Trump, and accusing government officials of treason went from groundbreaking to commonplace.

Since April 1, Trump has tweeted about:

• "No Collusion" 54 times
• "No Obstruction" 30 times
• "Witch Hunt" 20 times
• "Hoax" 19 times
• "Radical" Left/Democrats 17 times
• 13 or 18 "Angry Democrats" 12 times
• "Presidential Harassment" 10 times
• "Treason" 7 times

The big picture: While the number of interactions per tweet Trump generates has increased 21% between his first six months and most recent six months, it lags way behind his follower growth of 110%.

And he's tweeting more, which could make any individual tweet less likely to stand out.

• The pace of Trump's tweeting has picked up over the course of his presidency, from 157 times per month during his first 6 months to 284 times per month over the last 6 months.
• May is on pace to be the lowest month for Trump's Twitter interaction rate since January 2016.
• Not counting posts he retweets, he is at 343 tweets through May 25 — closing in on his one-month record of 348 in August.

By the numbers:

• Trump's top tweet of his presidency: The pro wrestling video of him taking down a man with a CNN logo for a head. (930,531 interactions)
• No. 2 and 3: Insults and threats to Kim Jong-un. (876,755, 685,193)
• It's not always controversy that takes off. Rounding out Trump's 5 biggest tweets are "Merry Christmas!" and "Good Morning, Have A Great Day!" (592,052, 538,564)
• Despite all of the drama of conflict, there's an appetite for harmony in Trump's tweets. In 11 months of his presidency, his biggest tweets had a uniting, positive message — like his responses to violent attacks and his post-Super Bowl messages.