Congressional Committee Investigating Capitol Attack Outperforms Oscars With Consecutive Prime-Time Public Sessions
Politics has become a show. This is how the members of the US Congressional Special Committee investigating the attack on the Capitol understood when they decided to go into the rags with a series of television sessions, highly unusual in said parliamentary chamber. To make matters worse, they released in prime time the first chapter of what Senator Marco Rubio calls a “free documentary sponsored by the major networks.” The strategy worked: Last Thursday’s release far surpassed the ratings of the Oscars and also the North American version of “Operación Triunfo” (“American Idol”).
Nearly 20 million people sat in front of TV on Thursday to find out what Donald Trump knew about the coup attempt that the country underwent during that January 6, 2021 uprising. They still don’t know, as the intrigue has been saved for last, but they have already learned that the former president made up the fraud strategy many months before the election. And that even when his advisers told him on election night that he was losing, Trump preferred to heed the diabolical advice of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani – “very drunk” according to some witnesses – on his premature victory. to disclose from where they tried to discourage him in his closest circle.
“The Big Lie was also the Big Scam,” California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren revealed, as she raised $250 million that wasn’t primarily about paying the legal costs of defending the Republicans’ supposed election victory. but for their own finances and those of their relatives. For example, Venezuelan Kimberly Guilfoyle charged $60,000 for the two minutes onstage it took to introduce her boyfriend, Donald Trump Jr., at the rally that led to the storming of the Capitol. “I’m not saying it’s a crime,” the congressman argued, “but I think it was a scam.”
Quite a plot that touched the audience of “El Joven Sheldon”, one of the country’s favorite series whose revival was canceled by CBS to make way for this great political show. The headlines count, too: ABC decided to advertise it as “Attack on the Capitol: The Investigation,” beating out its competitors on the same show. Many millions more people who didn’t fit into the calculations of consultancy Nielsen later watched it with delay via internet streaming channels such as YouTube. Television is already much more than the screen in the living room.
The data was not comparable to the 73 million people who followed the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden, nor even the 38 million for Biden’s first State of the Union address last March. They at least doubled the audience of Trump’s first impeachment, which reached 11 million viewers on six networks in January 2020.
But that millionaire television viewership report on that fateful January 6th would not include the Fox network’s viewers, of a conservative nature and unwilling to interrupt its programming. A politically sensible move, given that Congress’s “program” is drawing more interest from Democrats, but a business mistake, judging by the size of the eventual audience across the country.
Source: La Verdad
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
