Well the results are in, and they were not good. I am talking about the T.V. ratings for the 60th Grammy Awards on 1/28/18. Compared to last years show, the ratings were down 20%, and that was despite the show in 2017 facing stiffer competition on T.V. Ouch!
‘Deadline’ called these ratings an all time low for the ceremony. There are multiple possible reasons for this ratings debacle. Incredibly the show featured a reading by “Crooked Hillary,” a twice failed presidential candidate, from the debunked book, “Fire and Fury.” The show also featured Jay-Z who was, and still is, in a public feud with Donald Trump. All in all I think that the general public has had enough of the Hollywood elite bashing our President, as throngs of Americans are tuned out and thus did not tune in to watch the Grammys. (I did not watch the Grammys this year. )
If this were a prize fight, the round clearly went against the liberals.
Speaking of liberals not winning the T.V. ratings war, let’s go back one more time to the NFL and it’s tanking ratings because of the National Anthem controversy. The T.V. ratings for the NFL Conference Championship games on 1/20/18 were down 8% compared to last years games. This means that almost four million less T.V.s, (including my T.V.) were tuned into the NFL Conference Championship games in 2018 compared to 2017. This is not an outlier as the T.V. ratings for the NFL divisional championship games the weekend before were down 16% compared to 2017. Ouch!
Again if this were a prize fight, these rounds clearly went against the liberals.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the T.V. ratings for the Super Bowl, which is much less a football game than it is an extravaganza. But here I will go out on a limb, and predict that the ratings will be lower compared to last year.
I feel a lot more confident about predicting the T.V. ratings for Hollywood’s version of the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards Show, on March 4th. I project a T.K.O. with the ratings for this show tanking significantly compared to 2017.
Democrats/Demo-brats
Apparently twelve of the House Democrats boycotted the State of the Union speech by President Trump on 1/30/2018. Keeping in mind that this is a dramatic decrease from the number of Demo-brats that had boycotted President Trump’s inauguration last year, an optimist could say that progress has been made. Interestingly, of the twelve that boycotted the speech, half (6) were from California and Illinois, and I would guess that about half were members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Supposedly, prior to the planned speech, Nancy Pelosi “warned” her Democratic colleagues not to cause a scene by walking out during the President’s speech. Is it possible that this warning to behave like adult scouts from the den mother was instrumental in some not showing up at all?
However, in the long run those Demo-brats who did not show up were spared the embarrassment of looking like pouting three years olds who did not want to play Pin-the-Tail-on-Donkey at a neighborhood friend’s birthday party. Those members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who showed up, looked especially petulant when the cameras captured them sitting on their hands when Mr. Trump talked about job creation, higher wages, and the record low African-American unemployment rates. Really?? Other issues which did not engender any interest from the Demo-brats on left side of the aisle included nonpartisan issues, such fighting against the opioid epidemic, diminishing the Islamic State, decreasing drug prescription costs, and “in God we trust.” Mrs. Pelosi consistently had one of those lemon-sucking like facial expressions that you warn your kids about – “be careful as your face could freeze like that!” But to be fair she did recognize the National Anthem, even while shrugging her shoulders and looking towards her minions.
The President did a good job of using compelling stories about sympathetic individuals to reenforce multiple different points during his speech. Unfortunately the sustained ovations that followed each of these stories added to the length of the speech, but the warmth and the compassion brought out by the stories was worth the time.
Of course I liked the speech, but what did the country in general think of it? The initial “hot off the press” CBS poll had the overall approval rating at 75%, with an approval of 97% among Republicans, 72% among Independents, and 43% among Democrats. Of note to me is the approval rating among Democrats (43%) who watched on T.V. was dramatically higher than the approval rating of 1% (Joe Manchin of WV being the exception) of the Demo-brats who heard the speech live and in person. Perhaps the State of the Union is on the upswing!