The entire news media landscape has been talking and reacting to last week’s ABC News Presidential Debate. There’s been plenty of criticism given the moderators’ clear bias and their decision only to fact-check one of the two candidates.
But more broadly, what can media outlets and talk show hosts learn from the performance by David Muir and Linsey Davis? Your audience will punish you if you don’t meet their expectations.
Barrett Media wrote about how ABC World News saw its lead grow over NBC Nightly News in the wake of the debate. That’s true. But the bigger story is how they competed against themselves.
Muir’s “World News Tonight” averaged 6.7 million viewers on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the three episodes following the debate, after averaging 7.6 million in 2024 leading up to the debate.
The 12% drop in viewers for “World News Tonight” is more significant than the slight declines “CBS Evening News” and “NBC Nightly News” saw when comparing the three episodes following ABC’s debate to the year-to-date totals. However, Muir’s newscast remained the No. 1 broadcast evening newscast.
So, while Muir can tout still being No. 1 and growing a lead, these numbers are a massive disappointment. Spinning it any other way is gaslighting.
Here’s the takeaway: One week after more than 70 million Americans tuned in to watch the debate, with tens of millions more consuming the content via social media clips, ABC World News saw a decrease in overall viewership in their post-debate broadcasts.
The only other opportunity in America to get your product in front of that many eyeballs is the Super Bowl. ABC had the opportunity to pitch its product (World News Tonight) to tens of millions of Americans, and not only was there no bump, but there was a double-digit percentage decrease.
So, what can any media brand learn from this?
You need to give your audience what they want and then sell that product to them.
In this case, the American people were looking for moderators to not be the story. Instead, along with cats and ducks (Don’t get me started!) in Springfield, Ohio, they were the story.
Credit where it’s due, because back in June, CNN moderators Dana Bash and Jack Tapper were not the story following the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
And while there’s an old cliche, “Any publicity is good publicity”, that’s not the case when you pitch yourself as an honest broker and straight news operation.
Now as for who tuned out? We don’t have that data, but no matter what, it backfired. Any right-leaning viewers who tuned into David Muir may have very well tuned out to ABC World News Tonight after the debate performance, but it’s also clear that left-leaning viewers didn’t flock to ABC after the debate performance, or at least not at the pace to make up for the loss of right-leaning viewers.
So what did ABC gain with their moderators’ performance? Nothing.
In fact, they only lost, just like the rest of us who watched it.
Pete Mundo is a weekly columnist for Barrett Media, and the morning show host and program director for KCMO in Kansas City. Previously, he was a fill-in host nationally on FOX News Radio and CBS Sports Radio, while anchoring for WFAN, WCBS News Radio 880, and Bloomberg Radio. Pete was also the sports and news director for Omni Media Group at K-1O1/Z-92 in Woodward, Oklahoma. He’s also the owner of the Big 12-focused digital media outlet Heartland College Sports. To interact, find him on Twitter @PeteMundo.
