| | | | | "I'll keep you in suspense" | | | Higher rated than debate #2, lower rated than #1 | | Debate #3 was significantly higher rated than the final debates in 2008 and 2012, according to overnight Nielsen #'s. The total viewership # is likely to top 70 million.
Via Variety, the overnight household rating across 7 networks was 39.7... "Up from the 37.2 rating for the Oct. 9 debate, which went up against NFL competition..." But unable to top debate #1, "which grabbed a 46.2 overnight rating, which translated to some 84 million viewers..." | | | Running for president or writing a script for a TV show? | | | Will he accept the outcome of the election? "I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense." My question: Does he really think this is all just a show? "The Trump Show?" | | On CNN's "New Day," Bill Carter said Trump "was doing the FULL BALDWIN at times. He really was! With the 'wrong' and this and that..." Life imitating art imitating life...
-- Maggie Haberman tweets: "Trump did helluva Alec Baldwin impression last night..." | | | Right Side Broadcasting, a conservative live-streaming site known for its coverage of Trump rallies, helped the campaign produce a pre-game and post-game debate show last night. The stream topped out at around 200,000 simultaneous viewers on Facebook before the debate -- low when compared to TV, but high when compared to everything else on the web. We'll have more on this on CNNMoney later today... | | | "Trump is an entrepreneur" | | | Reminder: When Brooke Baldwin and I talked with Steve Bannon on Tuesday night, he did not deny that there's been talk about a potential "Trump TV" network. He responded to the rumors with a smile and said, "Trump is an entrepreneur." And he repeated the answer again later. He also pointed out Trump's social media prowess on Facebook and Twitter. "Look at the engagement. It's incredible..." | | | Clinton campaign promoting "Trump TV" theory | | | Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon told me this in the spin room last night: Steve Bannon and David Bossie "have emerged as having the upper hand" in the campaign... Asked about Trump's appealing-to-the-base strategy, Fallon said, "Maybe it's a strategy for creating a nice base of customers to monetize a television network..." | | Dylan Byers emails: No debate: Chris Wallace killed it. He delivered a sterling performance, maintaining order and focusing on substantive issues that matter to American voters. In an otherwise nasty and vitriolic campaign season, the "Fox News Sunday" host pressed both candidates.
But don't take my word for it... Wallace was widely praised for his performance by fellow journalists, political operatives on both sides of the aisle and even a few celebrities. Stephen King: "Chris Wallace did a good job. Taking no shit, like a veteran teacher monitoring detention hall." New Yorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum: "Gotta say, Chris Wallace is a pro. Cool demeanor, asking clear follow-ups." Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens: "So far the winner of this debate is Chris Wallace." Here's Dylan's full recap... | | | FoxNewsers are feeling incredibly proud this morning... Wallace's editorial team included "Fox News Sunday" researcher Lori Martin and exec producer Jessica Loker... | | | Must see cable news moments | | AP: "Threatening to upend a fundamental pillar of American democracy..."
CNN: "Raising the possibility of an extraordinary departure from principles that have underpinned American democracy for more than two centuries..."
NYT: "A remarkable statement that seemed to cast doubt on American democracy..."
Fox News: "A striking moment during his final debate..." | | | On last night's live "Late Show:" "Democracy's going to end in a CLIFFHANGER. I guess we're all going to have to wait until November 9th to find out if we still have a country. If Donald Trump is in the MOOD for a peaceful transfer of power..." | | | Hey guys, you sound... elitist | | Mark Halperin's take on the "suspense" answer, on MSNBC this morning: "It's the revenge of the elites. Elites do not accept that that was an appropriate answer..."
Joe Scarborough weighed in: "How many people in Scranton, PA, care about what he said in that answer, compared to people in newsrooms that are" -- Joe mock-whimpered -- "with their soy lattes."
Halperin responded: "You're right, normal people won't care about that answer... But elites control a lot of this process, they don't like that answer, and for good reasons," so it's going to get an enormous amount of attention... | | | Trump keeps talking about how the media is "poisoning" the electorate. WashPost's Callum Borchers says "Trump's media-based argument is next-level stuff. He's not talking about bogus ballots; he's saying that he might not acknowledge real votes if he believes the judgment of the people who cast them has been somehow clouded by the media." Read more... | | Brian Lowry's review: "Las Vegas is known for prizefights. So it was fitting that after a sluggish first few rounds, Hillary Clinton waded in with tactical precision in Wednesday's final presidential debate, while Fox News' Chris Wallace distinguished himself as a first-class referee..."
More: "During the post-debate analysis, many of the political commentators accused Trump of a self-inflicted knockout with his reaction to the legitimacy of the election. Yet even excluding that, before it was over he wound up looking like a brawler, while Clinton was content to win on points." Read his full column here...
-- Related: Jonathan Chait: "Clinton's prods, like jabs to a boxer, had a cumulative effect, swelling his wounded ego." | | | 37 false claims vs. 4 false claims | | | The Toronto Star's Daniel Dale, who is gaining more and more attention for his Trump-checking, counts 37 false claims by Trump during the debate versus 4 false claims by Clinton... Here are his lists... | | | Per Politico, "Trump interrupted Clinton 37 times. Clinton interrupted him 5 times." | | According to Merriam-Webster, these are the top 5 words being looked up by web visitors this morning:
hombre
big(ly)
ombre
trumpery
nasty | | | A little bit less social action this time around | | | Per Facebook, debate #1 saw 73.8 million "interactions" by 18.6 million users... Debate #2 ticked up to 92.4 million "interactions" by 19.8 million... But last night's debate declined to 79.9 million "interactions" by 17.8 million users, the lowest user total of the three... | | | Clinton fans swamp Breitbart's poll | | | Jill Disis writes: "Donald Trump might want to reconsider his love for those unscientific instant online polls. A survey on the far-right website Breitbart surprisingly had Hillary Clinton winning the final presidential debate by 6% early Thursday. The irony -- Trump losing an unrepresentative poll hosted by a site that has unabashedly embraced him, and whose chairman left to run his campaign -- was not lost on the internet. Later in the morning, a surge of votes from Trump supporters brought the results close to even..." | | | Trump still promoting unscientific polls | | | Trump tweeted out a list of OTHER online polls overnight and said "I am honored to win the final debate for our MOVEMENT." These were just unscientific surveys, of course... CNN's scientific poll showed Clinton prevailing... | | | NYT's David Leonhardt counts ZERO questions about climate change during the four debates this fall. This is "a failure of journalism," he writes. "I thought that the debate moderators had some very fine moments over the last few weeks, calmly drawing out the candidates. But the lack of a single question on the world's biggest problem was a grievous error..." | | "I don't recognize my country anymore. This is so terrifying. I think this is an existential moment for the United States of America."
--Ken Burns to Christiane Amanpour, talking about this election... The full interview airs later today on CNNI... | | | Ivanka Trump denies Jonah Peretti's claim | | | BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti tweeted Wednesday afternoon about a lewd conversation that Ivanka Trump allegedly had with him in the past. Later in the day, Ivanka told THR: "I am not sure if this was meant to be a joke, but in case there is any ambiguity, this is a complete and total lie." BuzzFeed, however, "further backed up Peretti's claim..." Details here... | | | "Will Donald Trump Stain Jared Kushner Forever?" | | | That's the title of Ross Barkan's latest piece for the Village Voice. It's notable because Barkan used to work for Kushner's NY Observer... | | | ICYMI last night: Here's a speed read of Wednesday's newsletter | | | Cuts and changes coming to the WSJ | | WSJ's Lukas Alpert reports: There's a "substantial revamp" of the WSJ in the works. Dow Jones has "launched a broader review of operations to cut costs in response to a significant decline in print advertising..." At the WSJ, "people familiar with the matter said the revamp could include a reduction of head count..."
-- More: Journal EIC Gerard Baker said in a memo that a revised edition of the paper will be "livelier, sharper and more concise..." It will involve "some consolidation of sections of the paper and the teams that produce it..." | | | CBS is on board YouTube's streaming TV service, called "Unplugged" | | | WSJ's Joe Flint and Shalini Ramachandran report: "Google reached an agreement with CBS Corp. to carry the broadcast network on its soon-to-be-launched web TV service, people familiar with the matter said. The deal made CBS the first major TV network to sign on to the new TV service, which will be housed on Google's YouTube platform and is likely to premiere in early 2017. Google also is near an accord to distribute channels owned by 21st Century Fox and is in advanced talks with NBCUniversal and Disney..." | | | Who's going to buy this Ailes miniseries? | | Announced today: Roger Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman is working with "Spotlight" director Tom McCarthy on a miniseries about Ailes. Sherman's book "The Loudest Voice in the Room" will serve as some of the source material... Sherman and his wife Jennifer Stahl will co-executive produce and write the series... McCarthy will be the primary executive producer... and Jason Blum will finance and package the project.
The project has not been pitched to any TV networks yet, a Blumhouse spokesman told me. (How about FX?) Read more... | | | He isn't the "loudest voice" in Trumpworld | | | Dylan Byers emails: Roger Ailes is no longer talking to Trump -- at least that's what New York's Gabriel Sherman and Vanity Fair's Sarah Ellison said on stage today at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit in SF. A high-level campaign source tells me Ailes' role in Trump's campaign was probably overstated in the first place. But they were certainly talking in the lead-up to the first debate, and the lines of communications seem to have broken down now. The important takeaway is this: Bannon is the north star for Trump, as I reported last week. It's certainly not Ailes... | | | Ailes' attorney Susan Estrich responds... | | | Just in time for this newsletter deadline, she emailed this: "I spoke to Roger. There was no falling out and there is no truth to these reports. He was never an official adviser to Trump, and his status hasn't changed. They have been friends for 35 years. But Roger has never attended any debate prep meetings and has not been advising him on debates." | | | Another bit of Fox news from the New Establishment Summit | | | During the session with Sherman, Ellison also reported that Megyn Kelly has added a chapter about Ailes to her forthcoming book "Settle for More." It'll be out on 11/15... | | | A very timely ad campaign from The Economist: | | | Still no Trump suit against NYT... | | | Dylan Byers emails: Law Newz asks a good question: Where is Trump's lawsuit against the NYT? It's been a week since the Trump campaign said it was "drafting" a lawsuit against The Times... But NYT spokesperson Eileen Murphy told me today there is still no lawsuit.... No comment yet from the Trump campaign... | | | Day in the life of Scottie Nell Hughes | | | As promised in last night's newsletter, Olivia Nuzzi has a new profile of Scottie Nell Hughes in GQ... Here it is... | | | The great Netflix debate continues | | CNNMoney's Samuel Burke clicked the link in last night's newsletter to Shira Ovide's Bloomberg article about Netflix, and he spotted "two big flaws in her article." From London, he writes:
"She questions if people overseas will take to Netflix. Now that I'm living overseas again the answer is a resounding yes. I'm traveling the continent right now for a docuseries CNNMoney is producing, and it's amazing to see how U.S.-like the adoption of Netflix is becoming on the continent. And the numbers bore that out in the earnings report: 3.2 million international subscriber gains versus expectations of just over 2 million.
Other big flaw is the cost of the expansion... If you look over the filings, the cost of expansion isn't much at all. When you look at the cost of how traditional companies expand overseas (having to buy offices and physical shops the way Blockbuster did back in the day) the cost is content rights deals (which are much cheaper in most of Europe than in the U.S.)..." | | -- Sandra Gonzalez emails: Good story here from THR about how NBC is concerned that new "Apprentice" host Arnold Schwarzenegger's past might come back to haunt him... (THR)
-- "Guardians" Vol. 2! Marvel Studios has released the first teaser for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and it's really fun (Chris Pratt, 70s soundtrack, baby Groot!), so enjoy some counter-programming before the debate tonight... (CNNMoney)
-- By Lisa France: Naturally Madonna worked blue when she briefly opened for Amy Schumer at MSG. We can't even repeat what she said she would do for anyone who votes for Clinton. And Schumer read an open letter to Tampa since folks there booed her anti-Trump jokes... (CNN)
-- More from Lisa: Offering up an "artist exclusive" is the name of the game for streaming music services. Amazon Music Unlimited is going with country superstar Garth Brooks (insert "Friends In Low Places" joke here)... (CNN) | | | What do you like about this newsletter? What do you dislike? Send your feedback to reliablesources@cnn.com. We appreciate every email... And we'll be back tomorrow... | | | Get Reliable Sources, a comprehensive summary of the most important media news, delivered to your inbox every afternoon. | | | | | |
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