CNN’s Trump Town Hall was a humiliating failure, as evidenced by one key number.

CNN’s Town Hall with Trump: A Ratings Bonanza

Money Talks

More than 3 million people tuned into CNN’s town hall featuring former president Donald Trump on Wednesday night. The last time CNN aired a show with those kinds of ratings, Trump was in the White House. That’s probably not a coincidence.

Trump dominated the town hall, and CNN has faced backlash, including internally, for allegedly handing him a political gift. But there’s a simpler explanation for why CNN gave a platform to Trump after devoting tens of thousands of hours in recent years decrying him as a liar, a bigot, a fascist, and an existential threat to America: Money.

Flashback: Candidate Trump was like a cash-filled piñata for the news media—the more they bashed him, the more money they made. CNN alone was estimated to have raked in over $1 billion the year he was elected. And the networks returned the favor. The media gave candidate Trump an estimated $2 billion in free ads during the 2016 election cycle by covering his rallies and controversies constantly.

Back in the Spotlight

When the Trump presidency ended, so did the media’s ratings fiesta. CNN’s hangover was especially bad, with the network losing half its viewership across certain demographics. But with Trump running for reelection a second time, CNN has in recent months seized the opportunity to get the party started. Like the other two major cable news networks, CNN devoted wall-to-wall coverage to Trump’s April 4 arrest and arraignment in New York City and, as a result, saw the most week-to-week viewership growth of the trio.

According to news reports, CNN invited Trump to do a town hall in a bid to “reset” as a less partisan brand and to attract more conservative viewers.

The Cost of the Spotlight

While both the media and Trump have benefited from keeping him in the spotlight, one side has appeared to pay a much bigger price. A YouGov poll released this week, echoing a trove of other survey data, found that CNN is the most polarizing U.S. news source even as trust in the media has reached an all-time low. Meanwhile, Trump has pulled away from the rest of the 2024 Republican field in recent polling. An ABC News survey released this week showed him beating President Joe Biden by a whopping 7 points in a head-to-head match-up.