Donald Trump Is Helping the Very Media Organizations He Despises
Throughout the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump crisscrossed the country promising to do the impossible: to rescue businesses in the crosshairs of complex economic changes and restore a sense of glory to firms in industries torn asunder by the forces of modern capitalism.
And he did it. Not for miners, though—for the media. And, quite often, for the media companies he criticized the most.
Pay TV is in structural decline, as younger viewers cut the cord or never subscribe in the first place. But the three major cable-news networks have each set viewership records in the first 100. MSNBC grew in both daytime and primetime. CNN also saw over its sensational 2016 ratings. Feeding off the fumes of Trump’s whirling-dervish presidency, the networks seem to be growing at the expense of practically everything else on television.
