Network says it’s providing a public service, but ratings suggest the public isn’t showing up.
By Paul Farhi Paul Farhi Media reporter Email Bio Follow May 14 at 7:00 AM If you wanted to watch the herd of Democratic presidential candidates in televised town halls these past few months, CNN has been the place to go.
CNN began airing the made-for-TV forums during the 2016 campaign. The sessions spotlight one candidate in front of a live audience in a locale outside Washington. Audience members fire most of the questions at the candidate , with an anchor serving as emcee and occasionally lobbing follow-up questions.
Both Feist and Mark Preston, CNN’s vice president of political and special events programming, say the goal is to provide a public service, not necessarily to boost CNN’s ratings. Which means, again in TV terms, that the town halls are a lose-lose proposition: A more expensive form of programming that has actually driven down viewership at a time when CNN is ramping up for the 2020 elections.
MSNBC, meanwhile, has done just one, with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in March. It drew 1.24 million viewers. An MSNBC spokeswoman said the network is planning to air a town hall with Harris on May 28; she declined further comment.
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