I have found Axios to be an increasingly interesting site. The graph at the top of this page was sampled from the linked post there. As the Democratic National Convention recedes into memory I think it’s worth thinking about what it all meant a bit.
I think it’s interesting and revealing that viewership of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have declined so much since 2008. They’re down about 40%.
I think there are multiple things going on. For one thing you can only claim historic milestones so many times before it all becomes so much noise. Barack Obama’s nomination was historic. So was Hillary Clinton’s but Sec. Clinton’s was nearly an anticlimax. The Clinton Administration had been almost 20 years before after all. The reality of the 2024 DNC despite all of the media hooplah was that Democrats couldn’t muster much more enthusiasm for watching it than they did in the middle of the pandemic.
I think it’s generational change and it’s not just politics. The viewership among young people for watching the Super Bowl has declined over the last 10 years. Televised national conventions may not be as effective a way of reaching people as they were in second half of the last century.
Axios suggests the conventions invite Internet influencers. I suspect the events themselves are less interesting than they used to be.
Pretty soon they’re going to be history.
IIRC the viewership for awards shows like the Oscars has been dropping and this has some similarities. They may or may not go away entirely but they do need to be shorter. In this case I think the kids who are correct. Who wants 4 days of this stuff and who wants to listen to 90 minutes speeches? (Yay! Gettysburg Address!)
Steve
That’s just live television. It doesn’t include streaming or the vast amount of media clips. If Harris gets a bounce, that would show impact.
Go Blue!!!
“I think it’s generational change and it’s not just politics”
Given that people in their 20s call chatting on line with people hundreds or thousands of mile away “dating,” I think you are correct.
There will always be a need to posture and preen before a live audience not to mention the uproar from the hospitality industry and unions if the convention goes away.
However, it could be shortened because the platform is already set, candidate ditto and a need to let nobs have say five minutes of podium time all in one night, all in the name of carbon reduction, saving the planet, ad nauseam.
Sky boxes at the DNC convention, going for some say $500,000, looking down on the peons below, is the new look for the Dem party. Like RFK Jr said in his suspension speech most of the core values/policies his slain Uncle and father stood for – free speech, no wars, supporting the working class — are no longer emblematic of the Harris/Walz talking points or actions. The dem party has become the party of censorship, excluding opposing POVs, the powerful, elite, billionaires/celebrities who donate exclusively to them, along with strong doses of dishonesty, hypocrisy, and corporate media bias. Lots of “normal” people are more aware of these changes and awakened to their progressive/Marxist policies that are no longer representative of the values and culture of mainstream Americans.
Although both conventions logged in lower viewerships (I watched both) I came away from the RNC one identifying more with their common citizen speakers, content regarding policy vs downing Biden (his name was mentioned twice in 4 days, while Trumps was cited 147 times during the first day of the DNC convention), and observing the RNC gathering was one of families, even children, something devoid in the more superficially derived “joy” pushed by the Dems.
Biting my tongue now…ouch!
Actually, the interesting part is that the Democrats de facto did away with the primaries, and the Party elites appointed Harris and Walz.
I’m old enough to remember when most of the delegates were hand-picked by the state party leaderships, and primaries were rare. And California, which had a primary, also had the unit rule, where the winner of the state primary got all the state’s delegates.
It can be argued that the state party leaderships generally did a better job than the primary voters. Another indication that democracy is a wrecking ball.