When it comes to watching TV, Americans this year are giving the cold sh൲oulder to sharks, zombies and pawn stars and putting on their thinking caps.
The dramatically close presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump haꦅs🌟 pushed up ratings and ad rates at Fox News, CNN and MSNBC so far this year, Nielsen ratings and interviews with Madison Avenue ad buyers reveal.
Meanwhile, Discovery, A&E, Spike TV and other entertainment cable networks have seen their pri🌠me-time ratings tu🙈mble by double digits, ratings show.
The three cable news networks are all Top 10 prime-time perfor𓂃mers in 2016, with Fox News leading the pack — ranking No. 1 of all networks in total people, drawing 2.26 million on average, a 28 percent boost from a year ago.
Ninth-place CNN pulled in 1.2 mill🐠ion viewers on average, up 90 percent, and No. 10 MSNBC drew 998,000, up 79 percent over the s൩ame period last year, ratings show.
As viewers tune in to get the latest on the crazy campaigns, execs at the entertainment networks can only watch th▨eir audiences shrink.
“The three news networks are genera꧟ting massive audiences and are hurting us,” David Zaslav, chief executive of Discovery Communications, told attendees Thursday at the Goldman Sachs Communicoꦆpia confab.
A&E’s His♉tory Channel (down 12 percent) and Discovery’s TLC and Spike TV (both down 11 percent) are among the hardest hit.
In𝔉 fact, the gravitational pull of the Clinton-Trump race is so strong that even rock-solid NFL rat🌺ings have seen a drop — off 12 percent in Week 2 of the season.
On Monday, the first presidential debate is expect🤪ed to draw an audience of up to 110 million peopl⛎e. (In contrast, “Monday Night Football” is being forecast to draw just 11 million.)
“It’s comparable to a Super Bowl audience,🍌” one sales source said of M🎶onday’s debate, “but there are no [commercial] breaks.”
For the news outlets,꧃ oversize audiences mean big ad sales.
Fox News executive vice president, advertising sales Paul Rittenberg told TV Newser: “I don’♛t think there’s any doubt that this calendar year will be, by far, our biggest sales year ever, certainly through the election.”
Overall, news networks are looki🥀ng at a 10 percent to 15 percent premium over what they normally cha꧋rge, several Madison Avenue sources told The Post on Thursday.
Another factor💮 wooing advertisers to cable news nets: live programming.
People are watching the political sport li�💃�ve and not recording it to watch later, experts said.
While there will be no ad breaks during the debate, the pre- an𒊎d post-debate coverage — being sold very aggressively by the n꧃ews nets — has already attracted a slew of advertisers, including some movie releases and a beer advertiser.
One source couldn’t remembeꦬr the last time a beer company bought ads during a political d𒐪ebate.
David Campanelli, Horizon Media senior vice president of video investment, told The Post: “Th🔥ey are definitely trying to charge highꦅer than a year ago, citing election coverage and interest.”