If the nightly news is any guide, the 2016 campaign is shaping up to be the most heavily covered presidential contest in history — thanks in no small part to Donald Trump.
So far this year, the nightly ABC, NBC and CBS broadcasts have spent a total of 504 minutes covering the campaigns, broadcast analyst Andrew Tyndall told CNN on Tuesday. At this point in 2007, 462 minutes had been dedicated to the race, while just 277 minutes had been given to the contest in 2011, he said.
It is all but certain to surpass the 790 minutes of campaign coverage in 2011 and will likely overtake the record 1,072 minute total for 2007, which was driven by heated contests among both Republicans and Democrats, Tyndall said.
The 2016 contest has benefited from the addition of Trump, who alone accounts for 29 percent of all coverage and 43 percent of all GOP coverage, according to Tyndall. Trump has had a total of 145 minutes of coverage on broadcast nightly news, far outperforming Hillary Clinton (82 minutes) and Jeb Bush (43 minutes).
After Trump, Clinton and Bush, the most covered candidate hasn’t even decided whether to run: It’s Joe Biden, who has garnered 31 minutes of coverage even though he has yet to make up his mind on whether or not he will stage a bid.
Tyndall is an independent news analyst and author of The Tyndall Report, which focuses on broadcast news coverage. His survey was based on the weekday nightly newscasts of the three broadcast networks from Jan. 1 to Sept. 18, 2015.
