Perhaps I'm a bit jaded after watching and reviewing Best of Enemies—a documentary concerned, in part, with the coarsening of political coverage in the wake of the 1968 debates between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal—but I can't help but feel that Fox News executives were gleefully rubbing their hands as the first Republican primary approached and Donald Trump was leading the pack. The Donald may be a clown, but he's an entertaining one, and the potent combination of curiosity and potential schadenfreude was a surefire lure for audiences who might otherwise ignore this sort of thing.
And, sure enough, the ratings were yuge:
Early overnight Nielsen ratings suggest that Thursday's Republican debate was not just the most-watched primary debate in history -- it may have been twice as big as the previous record-holder.
The debate on Fox News had a 16.0 household rating between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., according to Nielsen.
Translation: 16% of United States homes with TV sets tuned in.
Fox News usually has 1% or 2% of the household audience.
I have an exclusive reaction shot from Fox News HQ:
The massive ratings might help explain some of the ads we saw last night. I don't know if you noticed this, but the placement of certain spots was prominent, almost Super Bowl-like. For instance, the coveted first ad in the first break went to ... the new Steven Spielberg movie, Bridge of Spies:
That is exactly the sort of ad that would be the first to play during the Super Bowl. There was also a prominently placed advertisement debuting a new spot for the forthcoming Aaron Sorkin-scripted Steve Jobs:
Perhaps most amusingly was the ad for Straight Outta Compton, which, in an interesting (intentional?) bit of synergy, came after a question on police violence:
Make no mistake: This wasn't your typical primary debate. This was a well-packaged, well-sold bit of entertainment designed to maximize revenue for the cable network hosting it and used by movie studios to highlight other forthcoming bits of well-packaged, well-sold entertainment. Fox News ate the whole wheel of cheese last night. I'm not even mad. That's amazing.