Maybe this will keep him occupied so that he forgets about things like the Kennedy Center, the reflecting pool, cutting down cherry trees, etc. If so, then go for it!
AFAIK, Trump personally hasn’t said a word about Trump TV, not live or on Lies Social. Weird. Wonder if he even knows about it.
It’s a good question.
If it turns out that TrumpTV is just a collection of videos on a YouTube channel, not an actual streaming news channel, whether they’re professionally produced or not, what separates this from a million other video essay and news aggregation channels on the site? I am an avid YouTube user and those types of channels are a dime a thousand. From all different political perspectives from the far left to the far right and all points in between.
Maybe I’m missing something here, I know there’s a whitehouse.gov page as linked in the OP. But if Trump is not going out of his way to promote this and specifically associate with himself, I can’t see how this doesn’t get lost in all the noise.
Remember my plan a couple years back of buying Fox News and turning it into a Potemkin channel giving the MAGAts what they want? CGI-generated videos of ICE chasing down brown people. Democrats in the House and Senate being arrested enmasse for voter fraud. Gays being herded into concentration camps at bayonet point.
They’re doing it to themselves.
All Trump, all the time. This will make up for the lack of Trump coverage in daily life. A Maga-hat’s dream!
On another message board, a predominantly right-wing board, somebody is taking one for the team, and reporting on how many people are watching Trump TV at random times.
Maybe about mid-afternoon on Friday, she posted what she saw just before posting her message. Out of all the people in the US, and possibly foreigners and bots, the total was …
“But remember, I was one, so the total was really 473 who were interested in it.”
Pretty poor ratings for a former TV host who thinks he has terrific ratings.
There may be a lot more after David Ellison shuts down CNN and CBS and the Orange One cancels the licenses of ABC and NBC. All news will henceforth come from the Ministry of Truth.
Scary stuff. No joke about the incredible media influence that Ellison will have in America, which also includes HBO, putting programs with political commentary like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Real Time with Bill Maher at risk.
Trump thinks he can shut down ABC and NBC, but in fact they own very few licenses. Most ABC and NBC stations are independent affiliates, which own their own licenses, and as affiliates, agree to show network programming. WKBW Channel 7 in Buffalo may be an ABC affiliate, but if Trump yanks the licenses that ABC actually owns, then WKBW can keep broadcasting. Until Trump gets around to cancelling WKBW’s own individual license.
As for Ellison and CNN and CBS, good luck with that. He can shut down both, but he’d face a lot of backlash. CBS has a lot of popular programs that viewers like, and while I agree that “60 Minutes” might turn into an extension of the Ministry of Truth, a lot of CBS’ independent affiliates have contracts with syndicated programming (e.g. game shows, reruns, etc.). And in CNN’s case, Trump says it has low ratings—but then, if the ratings are so low, then why is Trump’s Secretary of War [sic] buying ads for “war (dot) gov” on it? If it’s still making money from advertising, and it is, then why would Ellison shut it down? Sometimes monetary reasons trump (heh) political ones.
All good points. They’re not going to be shut down. The actual reality is that their political commentary may become heavily influenced by the ownership, worsening the grip that the right-wing already has on American media. Fact-based shows and series like John Oliver’s investigative journalism will be at serious risk. Today’s Republican lunatics are seriously averse to facts.
It depends on the delivery. It would be easy for an on-air personality to make fun of Trump’s latest pronouncement, without actually doing so. Heck, I’ve done voice acting; I know how it can be done. Fictitious example:
CNN’s JAKE TAPPER (obviously reading from a piece of paper): It. Looks. Like. President. Turnip. Er, Trump. Has. Issued. An. Executive. Order. Banning …
Of course, that might get Tapper fired, but I’m sure he’d be rehired after a saner administration is in control. He’s a popular presenter, knows how to use his voice, and so on.
Ah, well. Let’s see what happens at the midterms.
The valuation of the broadcast stations isn’t broken out from the parent company’s finances, but Byron Allen made a recent $10 billion bid for ABC. NBC probably would bring the same. Annual revenue per station is probably $200 million. No corporation wants to lose those numbers.
Losing a license means the station immediately goes off the air. The FCC would go after the individual stations, and then give the licenses new owners. But ABC and NBC would take the hits.
Realistically, the lawsuit that would be immediately launched would drag on past the 2028 election, though it would cost tens of millions. But if a Republican president were to be elected, the free press would be just one of the consequences.
How is Trump TV doing? It must be pulling in millions of viewers, right?
From a recent Kathleen Parker op-ed:
I just checked and it had a whopping 350 morons watching. Or, it could be 350 reporters taking one for the team to see what idiotic content it was spewing.
Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump watches, now Trump TV. Everything he touches is shit.
Following his appearance at the Knicks/Spurs NBA final game that turned into the only one of the series that the Knicks lost, Trump attended the Tennessee/Texas college football game in Nashville that Tennessee lost.
You’d think that every team coach and owner would ban him from any game they needed to win. Even Trump University should. Retroactively.
Did TU even have sports teams? I had the impression it was a diploma mill offering worthless sheepskins.
Yes, it was online only. Why let that get in the way of the joke, though?