In a few hours the President will speak at the Davos conference and for an hour or two, at least, divert media attention from the “scandals” they are so fervently covering. The scandals are nothing or deep, depending upon which side of the political spectrum you are on.
On one side has been the 15 month long Russian collusion scandal that the MSM and their print allies have beat a continual drumbeat about. They miss no opportunity to breathlessly report any news that could possibly support their belief that administration wrong doing occurred.
On the other side is the rising news about the FBI bias and what some hosts on conservative media are calling the “real scandal”.
So what is real and what is media hype? Here’s our thoughts:
First, there was no collusion between the President or his campaign and the Russians. If after fifteen months of House and Senate hearings you have nothing, guess what? There is nothing. No collusion took place. The noise was just that, noise.
What you are seeing is a moving away from the year long collusion charges to obstruction charges. Obstruction could only arise if the President, in his haste to end the false investigation, tried to push the FBI and DOJ to end it.
You can see why he would do that. It was a strain on his presidency and news of it was dominating the coverage of his time in office.
So what started with collusion, colluSION, COLLUSION will prove not to be, but lead to other charges because of it. That is a shame.
Now on the other side we have charges that the fix was in for Hillary and in fact it went beyond that. It also went to a plot to get Trump and stop him from serving.
To believe this we have to say the FBI is crooked. That Jim Comey was not an upstanding individual but a devious underhanded person. That the new FBI Director, appointed by Trump, is now part of it. After all, he has not removed to fire anyone. That Robert Mueller is not the upstanding citizen everyone said he was, because he is allowing it to continue. That’s a lot to believe.
Do we think there is something there? We do, but nothing like some are saying. We believe they may find some with a bias to clear Hillary and let her and team off the hook. Just like they let Lois Lerner off, but not the grand conspiracy they are talking about.
In Conclusion:
We think the political climate has created some outlandish false narratives. Some funny stuff? Yes, as always, but not to the extent of Russian collusion and an FBI scandal at the highest level.
We’ll see.
The Ratings:
One thing for sure. The charges have driven cable news viewership.
Total Viewers TUESDAY. Fox again beats MSNBC and CNN combined.
- Total day: FNC: 2.083 | CNN: 797 | MSNBC: 1.260| HLN: 221
- Primetime: FNC: 3.243 | CNN: 994 | MSNBC: 2.315 | HLN: 291
| 4p: | 5p: | 6p: | 7p: | 8p: | 9p: | 10p: | 11p: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FNC | Cavuto: 2.127 |
Five: 2.773 |
Baier: 2.865 |
MacCallum: 2.629 |
Carlson: 3.311 |
Hannity: 3.572 |
Ingraham: 2.843 |
@Night: 1.717 |
| CNN | Tapper: 949 |
Blitzer: 945 |
Blitzer: 921 |
Burnett: 950 |
Cooper: 994 |
Cuomo: 1.008 |
Tonight: 977 |
Tonight: 816 |
| MSNBC | Wallace: 1.200 |
MTPDaily: 1.275 |
Melber: 1.398 |
Matthews: 1.787 |
Hayes: 1.893 |
Maddow: 2.851 |
O’Donnell: 2.202 |
Wlms: 1.434 |
| HLN | Michaela: 110 |
Cupp: 94 |
Banfield: 111 |
Banfield: 167 |
Files: 189 |
Files: 259 |
Files: 420 |
Files: 409 |
WEEK OF JANUARY 15.
Without college and pro football to lean on, ESPN fell out of the top 5 among total viewers, and Fox News moved back up to the top of the charts for the week of Jan. 15, 2018, both in total day and in prime time.
Here’s a look at the Top 5.
Basic Cable Top 5 – Prime Time (Total Viewers)
- Fox News (2,732,000)
- MSNBC (2,009,000)
- HGTV (1,491,000)
- USA (1,476,000)
- TNT (1,350,000)
Basic Cable Top 5 – Total Day (Total Viewers)
- Fox News (1,595,000)
- MSNBC (1,091,000)
- Nickelodeon (1,051,000)
- HGTV (868,000)
- Investigation Discovery (858,000)
Moving to business television – Fox Business defeated CNBC last week in total business day viewers (277,000 vs. 208,000)