NBC, a television network that boasts the unofficial motto “People Loved Us in 1998,” recently took a gamble on its former reality television show host President Donald Trump, airing a rival town hall at the same time as his opponent Joe Biden’s ABC town hall. And, similarly to previous gambles such as Outsourced or Are You There, Chelsea?, NBC has once again proven that it has no idea what people America likes to see trapped inside its collective goggleboxes.
Ratings show that 14.1 million viewers watched Joe Biden’s town hall on ABC, just one network, surpassing by far Donald Trump’s combined ratings from NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC, three different, affiliated networks that simulcast Trump’s town hall to just 13.1 million people.
To put these numbers in terms President Trump can understand, his town hall got lower ratings than the Season Three premiere and finale of The Apprentice, while Joe Biden got higher ratings than the Season Three premiere and finale of The Apprentice. And to put this in a perspective NBC can understand, the network’s pivot to racist dog-whistling, while was more successful than its racist remake of The Office set in India, would have needed over two million more viewers to be as successful as the first season of ALF. [CNN]
Speaking of pivoting to racism, the Atlantic is releasing a Behind the Music but for white supremacy with its new documentary White Noise about the rise in popularity of American Nazism in the age of social media. (Get it? They’re loud and also white. At long last I understand why people put The Atlantic on their coffee tables when they want to look smart but not interesting.)
The documentary promises to follow Richard Spencer, Lauren Southern, and Mike Cernovich as they incite murder and violence in exchange for Twitter followers. A trailer and subsequent piece of promotional propaganda published by the magazine suggests the documentary will also serve as an image rehabilitation vehicle for white supremacist Lauren Southern, who seems to have experienced regret after hitting a glass ceiling of sexism in the world of neo-Nazism. I cannot wait to never watch this. [The Atlantic, YouTube]
- Trump staffers, fearing that they will soon be back on the job market, are preparing their resumes, presumably brainstorming how they might explain away a four-year resume gap. [Washington Post]
- YouTube has announced it will feature fewer QAnon videos but still more than the ideal number, which is none. [Buzzfeed]
- The Trump administration’s courtship of Ice Cube sounds so depressing: “Trump aides had invited Ice Cube’s representatives to the White House and heard them out on conference calls, at least one of which included the performer. There was a lunch at the president’s Bedminster golf club with Ice Cube’s manager.” [Politico]
- Sniveling hobgoblin and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin admitted that nearly $4 million earmarked for 9/11 first responders has been withheld by the department since 2004.
- The company tasked with printing absentee ballots for battleground states Ohio and Pennsylvania is mysteriously running 10 days behind. [Twitter]
- Mary Trump would like to once more clarify that Donald Trump is both her uncle and unstable in light of Savannah Guthrie’s comments to the contrary. [Twitter]