Non-Existent Popularity

Popularity is an odd duck.  Our concepts of what is popular are usually omitting facts which can change a person's perception of what we consider culturally significant.

We consider a movie a huge success if it's the #1 movie in the country, but how popular is that?  For a movie like The Upside, this week's #1 movie, that can mean only 30-40 people are (on average) in any given showing of the film, with a total of around 2.25 million people catching the film on it's opening weekend, in a country of 325,700,000.  That translates to .6% of the population, less than 1%, not exactly overwhelming.  But we still label it a huge success.

Meanwhile the viewer totals for a YouTube channel or for a streaming service can deliver far more viewers.  As I type this, YouTube video 'Is Organic Really Better?' has 1.4 million views, in 12 hours.  Granted people are not paying for a ticket to see it, but regardless it's still wildly popular.   Kurt Russell had the biggest movie of his career on Netflix this Holiday season.  The Christmas Chronicles was watched by 20 million people, IN ONE WEEK! That would translate to around a little less than a 200 million dollar opening week, ranking it as nearly a top 20 opening week of all time (if it had been released in theaters).  6.1% of the US population watched that holiday film, and that IS with a subscription service price attached.

Same thing goes for top TV shows.  Have you heard about the hot new show 'The Masked Singer'? Nearly 9 1/2 million people watched it the week of Dec. 31 to January 6th, only 2.8% of the population, but the way it was talked about in media, both traditional and social, made you think FAR more people caught the show. And even though the music industry doesn't have anything close to the album sales of the past, digital downloads and online streaming service playlists can produce huge audiences.

The main reason I'm pointing all of this out is to make you question what is popular, particularly when it comes to entities whose popularity anoints them with misguided and dangerous false influence and success.

Trump LOVES Fox news and right wing radio hosts.  He loves them so much he takes their advice on many issues.  We're currently in the longest government shutdown in US history because Trump was brow beaten into it by these right wing media celebrities, and Trump is terrified of being labeled a loser by the same entities, meaning he's determined to hold the US government hostage to get what he wants, namely 5 billion in US tax payer dollars to pay for an foolish border wall.

We think many right wing TV and radio hosts are extremely popular, and (when comparing them to others in their industries) they are.  But in reality these people only appeal to a small portion of the population, as a whole. For December 2018 (Talkers Magazine), the number one radio show was Rush Limbaugh, a host Trump regularly listens to for advice on running the country.  Rush had a very impressive 14 million listeners on average in December, a massive number for a radio show, but comparing it to the total population of the US, he's only talking to 4.2% of the nation in any given day, FOUR POINT TWO!  That's it!  That means 95.8% of the US doesn't listen to Rush Limbaugh!  Sean Hannity's radio show is heard by 4.1% of the population, mainly the same people listening to Rush.  Same can be said for Michael Savage (3.3%), Mark Levin (3.0%) and Laura Ingraham (2.4%); small percentages of the population as a whole, and most of the listeners are the same exact group of people, show after show.  This means right wing radio only appeals to 5 to 6 percent of the population, AT BEST.

Yet these people have one very important listener listening to everything they have to say on any given day; Trump.

It's even more stark on Television. Fox News average audience is usually around 1.5 to 1.6 million people, making it a ratings success on cable news, but an arid desert when it comes to appealing to the US population.  Fox News' reach (on average) in any given day is half of 1% of the US population; HALF of 1%!!!  The number one cable News TV show is Hannity with (according to Adweek) 3.3 million viewers, 1% of the total US population.  Tucker Carlson reaches .8%, The Ingraham Angle, .7% and Trump's favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, with their 1.5 million viewers, .4% of the US population. Trump's favorite Fox News Weekend show, and a woman he has actually considered to be Attorney General of the United States, Judge Jeanine Pirro, has 1.3 million viewers for her Saturday show.  Once again, that's great when comparing it to other weekend cable news shows, but should a woman who only appeals to .3% of the population have a direct line to the President?

And the numbers get even lower when you talk about the guests these shows have, the Ann Coulter's, the Newt Gingrich's, the Robert Jeffress'.  They're appealing to a minuscule portion of the US population, yet have an insane amount of control over the policies which effect every single American.

Here's where Trump's right wing media worship becomes a real big problem.  Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the rest of them are not trying to appeal to a majority of the US.  They could care less about most people.  They are all quite happy with only appealing to the same 14 to 20 million people.  These are the absolute worst people to have consulting and influencing Trump!  They do not have the best interest of the American citizen at heart, only their best interest, a self fueling narcissism which is only getting worse as the marginal talents from the fringe (when compared to the population as a whole) are intoxicated by the knowledge they have the loyal ear of the most powerful office on the planet.

And before right wing troll calls me out and says, "far bigger audience than you have, MATT!," you're absolutely correct.  Like I said, when looking at the reach of these media personalities from the industry side, they're very impressive.  My point is should we tolerate people who only have to appeal to 5% or less of the population with being the primary decision makers for all of us?  Most politicians have to appeal to a much larger percentage of their local population to win their seat, usually 45% or higher of the votes cast, and at least 30% of their local population as a whole. Heck, Trump himself (while losing to Hillary Clinton's 48.2%) still garnered 46.1% of the popular votes cast. When factoring all US eligible voters, many of whom did not vote in 2016, he still managed around 27% of the population supporting him, 6.75 times as many people as who listen to Rush Limbaugh.  We should not tolerate Trump turning his focus more myopic, to a small subset of his followers to get most of his input.

Trump is basically Chance the gardener, Peter Seller's great character from the movie Being There. Addicted to television he can't seem to figure out where the TV world ends and the real world begins.  Trump's putting his decision making ability in the hands of people who are perfectly content on only appealing to a small portion of us, people who are trying to use their media celebrity to propel themselves into a real position of power.  Considering this exact same thing (marginal media talents appealing to their country's leaders) is something we've seen happen in the worst regimes the planet has ever produced, it might be a good time to take the remote control away from Trump, or at least change the channel to 'The Masked Singer'.  That way, if Trump appoints one of the masked people to be the Attorney General, or the Director of the FBI, or to run the World Bank, we'll at least see it for the pathetic joke it really is.