Guest post by Jonathan Davis of Conservative Review – The majority of cable news hosts love to hate on Donald Trump to an extent never before seen in modern history.

Presidents have always been criticized, of course, but nothing close to the animosity and outright hatred expressed toward Trump.

Indeed, for a number of cable news outlets, their entire revenue model appeared to be based on covering him 24/7/365 — every comment, every tweet, every action, every reaction he made, wrote or uttered.

Most of these hosts cheered when Joe Biden ‘won’ the White House. They cheered again when Trump was banished from social media.

But a new examination of viewership numbers and revenue show that a cable news world without Donald Trump to kick around anymore isn’t a profitable or pleasant place.

The Daily Caller reports:

Former President Donald Trump’s departure from the White House has coincided with a sharp decline in viewership for numerous primetime cable news shows, a VIP analysis showed.

The size of the audience watching “CNN Tonight With Don Lemon” between March 1-5 was down by -32.5% compared to the average audience between Nov. 30-Dec. 4, 2020, before President Joe Biden’s inauguration and Trump’s impeachment trial, VIP showed in its analysis.

CNN shows appeared to suffer the most sizable slumps for audience numbers in that time period. “Anderson Cooper 360” had its average audience decrease by -32.2%, while “Cuomo Prime Time” saw a -28.5% decrease, according to the report.

It’s not much better over at MSNBC:

“All In With Chris Hayes,” featured on MSNBC, had its audience reduced by -16.7%, and “Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell,” also on MSNBC, had a decrease of -17.6%, VIP reported.

All said, Fox News, which featured Trump prominently in its own line-up as well, wasn’t “immune” from the president’s departure, though clearly, the network didn’t hemorrhage nearly as many eyeballs.

Laura Ingraham’s viewership fell by 9.2 percent; Sean Hannity lost about 11.9 percent of his viewers; and Tucker Carlson’s audience shrank by about 4.8 percent.

But again, the tanking numbers are far more pronounced over at the former “Airport Network.”

By mid-February and following Trump’s second impeachment, “Cuomo Prime Time” viewership sank 31.2 percent after getting a modest 7.7 percent increase the week of the trial.

“The Rachel Maddow Show” climbed 10.1 percent during the trial but bottomed out by 22.3 percent following the trial. She’s bottomed out before, by the way.

“The Capitol Building riot in January also impacted ratings, especially among the 25-54 age demographic. Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson were competitive in the first week of December, and Cooper’s show saw an audience bump with that age demographic in the few days following the Jan. 6 riot. But after Trump left office, Cooper soon began to trail Carlson,” The Daily Caller reported, citing the analysis.

It’s likely that these hosts are aware of their slumping numbers. It’s why they are increasingly saying things that are complete lunacy while acting out with crazed shoutfests at the screen and loud moral preening.

They have to find a new way to get attention, and the only way to do it, apparently, is to act out.

And it’s also why they simply can’t get away from Trump. If you’ll notice, the president is still a frequent topic of discussion despite the fact that he’s living large again in Mar-a-Lago, not 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and the decisions being made in the White House these days have nothing to do with him.

But while Trump continues to live rent-free in their heads, it’s clear that he’s not reciprocating.

Rather, the president is strategizing with his advisers and key Republicans in Congress to take over the GOP by remaking it in his image.

Seems like Trump is good for the cable news business. And bad for it.

Now imagine this: What if Trump were to create his own media brand or take over an existing one? What would be left of the rest of cable news?

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