President Obama may have invited the nation to "turn the page" on the last 15 years of American history, but it seems that it is Americans, particularly Democrats, that have already turned the page on him.
Not only was Obama's Tuesday night State of the Union Address the least viewed State of the Union in 15 years, but ratings were particularly bad for MSNBC, the favorite network of liberal Democrats. Variety reports:
Nielsen won’t issue cume numbers until later Wednesday or Thursday, but Fox News (3.471 million), CNN (2.557 million) and MSNBC (1.995 million) combined to draw a little over 8 million viewers from 9 to 10:15 p.m. ET, according to preliminary estimates. This is down from 9.1 million last year and 10.35 million in 2013.
CNN was the only one of of the three networks to rise vs. last year, bouncing back from what turned out to be its smallest SOTU tune-in in nine years.
In adults 25-54, CNN led the way with 1.021 million during the address — up a big 40% from last year. It was followed by Fox News (834,168), which had its smallest demo audience since 2000, and MSNBC (473,460), which had its smallest in eight years.
When Democrats are tuned in to politics, MSNBC does get decent ratings. In fact, during the Democratic National Convention in 2012, they beat out both CNN and Fox. And in 2013, MSNBC President Phil Griffin even boldly predicted that his network would routinely beat Fox by 2014.
None of that happened. Whatever excitement Democrats had for Obama in 2012 has completely vanished. MSNBC's ratings plummeted in 2014 and Democrats suffered historic defeats at the polls in November.
The only question now is if Democrats will like the next book they pick up. So far it doesn't seem they do.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member