The Kennedy Heart is defending this yr’s Kennedy Heart Honors after the Donald Trump hosted telecast delivered all-time low viewership for CBS.
The Dec. 23 telecast averaged 3.01 million viewers on CBS, in accordance with Nielsen Dwell + Identical Day Panel + Large Information. That’s an all-time low viewers for the annual particular, down from 4.1M Dwell+Identical Day viewers final yr when it aired on a Sunday with a football-boosted 60 Minutes lead-in. This yr, the occasion was broadcast on a Tuesday.
Roma Daravi, vice chairman of public relations for the middle, mentioned in a press release, “Evaluating this yr’s broadcast scores to prior years is a traditional apples-to-oranges comparability and proof of far-left bias. This system carried out extraordinarily nicely throughout key demographics and platforms, regardless of business and timing disadvantages, together with a Tuesday air date two days earlier than Christmas.
She added, “With general tv utilization down roughly 20 % yr over yr, the printed nonetheless tied for the #1 spot amongst adults aged 25–54, alongside a stay NBA doubleheader. And on social media, Honors garnered 1.5 Billion impressions in only one night time—up from solely 50 Million comparable impressions final yr. This was a profitable night time celebrating the excellent achievements of our Honorees on the Trump Kennedy Heart.”
The social media information and 20% decline in utilization couldn’t instantly be corroborated (digital numbers would not have the identical commonplace measurement that TV scores through Nielsen does). After Trump’s takeover, the Kennedy Heart has at occasions claimed media bias for tales that replicate negatively on the middle’s operations.
The middle additionally mentioned that $23 million was raised from this yr’s ceremony, what it mentioned was almost double the quantity of final yr.
Sylvester Stallone, Michael Crawford, KISS, George Strait, and Gloria Gaynor had been honored on the Dec. 7 ceremony, taped for later broadcast. It was the primary time {that a} sitting U.S. president had hosted the ceremony. Weeks after he took workplace, Trump seized management of the middle, firing Joe Biden and Barack Obama appointees to the board in a transfer that ensured that he can be chosen as the humanities establishment’s chairman.
Final month, after the ceremony, the board voted so as to add Trump’s title to the Kennedy Heart, which was established by an act of Congress in 1964. Members of the Kennedy household objected to the renaming, whereas one ex officio member of the board, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), sued, contending that solely Congress can change the title of the establishment.
