Whither the Youth Vote?: ESPN’s NBA Game Trounced Biden Speech in the 18-34 Demo Ratings, Nearly Beating CNN, MSNBC, and Fox COMBINED
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Youth turnout could be a key factor in the 2020 election and the Democratic Party is intent on energizing it around its candidate Joe Biden, but as he was giving his highly anticipated DNC acceptance speech on Thursday night, nearly as many 18 – 34-year-olds were watching Round 1 of the NBA playoffs as the coverage of his speech on all three cable networks combined.
According to Nielsen Media Research ratings compiled by ShowBuzzDaily, Game 2 of the series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland TrailBlazers pulled in a 1.18 share among all 18 – 34 year-olds. By contrast, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News only reached a 1.23 share, with the breakdown among the channels coming in at 0.58, 0.40, and 0.25 shares, respectively.
Though the Western Conference match-up featured two of the hottest players in the league right now — the Lakers’ LeBron James and the Blazers’ Damian Lillard — the game was a blowout. And by the time that Biden took the stage in Delaware a little around 10:45 p.m., the Lakers were comfortably leading by 20 points, en route to a 111 – 88 victory, tying the series at one game apiece.
The ratings disconnect for the youngest bloc of voters isn’t that surprising, however, since the median age of viewers for all three cable news networks typically hovers around the early 60s.
