No Surprise... Obama Has Received More Airtime Than Bush And Clinton Combined

Everywhere you look it seems as though President Obama is the topic of conversation. That's because he's received more airtime on the news channels than President Bush and President Clinton combined. The nonpartisan research group The Center for Media and Public Affairs released a study that found the news networks gave President Obama more airtime and more favorable coverage  compared to his predecessors. Over 58% of all new mentions were favorable on the major networks compared to 33% for Bush and 44% for Clinton during the first 50 days of their presidencies.

Not only has Obama gotten more coverage, but that coverage has been more positive than his predecessors.On the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts, 58% of all evaluations of the president and his policies have been favorable, while 42% were unfavorable. That compares with 33% positive in the comparable period of Bush's tenure and 44% positive for Pres. Clinton.

Who gave Pres. Obama the most airtime? And where does Fox fit in? CBS led the coverage with 365 stories and 10 hours 46 minutes of airtime, followed by NBC with 327 stories and 9 hours 38 minutes, and ABC with 329 stories and 7 hours 20 minutes.

The first half hour of Fox News' "Special Report with Bret Baier," which the study says most closely resembles the network evening newscasts, devoted 10 hours 24 minutes to the Obama administration, nearly as much airtime as CBS gave him.

But Fox News stands apart from its competitors here - only 13% of comments* were considered favorable. On ABC, 57% of the comments were favorable, compared to 58% for CBS and 61% for NBC.

Comments

[Darlene E. Cormier]

I am a news junkie. Online magazines, newspapers and blogs. Hooked on cable. But I must confess that over the last, ohhhh, 100 days or so, I often find myself channel surfing out of pure frustration. I like the National Geopraphic channel where you can dream of those places on earth where they wouldn't know a Republican from Democrat or vice versa. Or CNN or FOX NEWS or MSNBC. But then I snap myself out of it and continue to watch and read because the best defense is to stay tuned!

[Rey E. Caraballo]

I will try to keep this short and simple in order to not jump into too many topics, but I think that there is a very simple solution as to why BO has received so much air time. The fact is that neither one of his predecessors had to deal with as much stuff as he has been handed in the beginning of their terms. Clinton had to deal with (for the most part) the economy; which he fixed and handed over a surplus to Bush by the end of his 2nd term. Since Bush didn't have to deal with that he just went off to other stuff that nationally didn't require as much attention until 9/11 came around. By the beginning of Bush's 2nd term all there was to discuss was the War since the economy was still stable. Now you have BO who has to deal with not only a jacked up economy but also 2 wars. I don't really care too much about whether the coverage is "favorable" or not because to me that is all subjective depending on which network is covering what story and whether or not it would be "favorable" for them, the network, to get across a point that not only they believe in, but also the majority of their target audience believes in. And now on top of that you throw in what the WHO consider a level 5 pandemic alert so I bet his face will be out there even more. Besides he's doing more than the previous two presidents did in regards to reaching out to other countries to get them to the speaking table (like Cuba and Iran). This alone would spark heated debates from either side of the aisle.