President Trump didn’t bother with the Kennedy Center Honors this year.
Apparently, neither did viewers.
“CBS’ broadcast of Kennedy Center Honors clocked its lowest ratings result in people-meter history, dating back to 1987. The Tuesday 9-11 PM broadcast fumbled 28% of last year’s 8.620 million total viewers, to 6.169 million,” Deadline reported. “The demo dive: 30% from last year’s 1.0 rating to 0.7. The 2006 telecast ran on the same Tuesday, December 27, though the extra day between the broadcast and Christmas might have benefited last year’s broadcast by separating it further from holiday distractions and travel.”
In recent years, the U.S. president has attended the Kennedy Center Honors, which is pre-recorded and broadcast around Christmastime. Trump announced early on that he would skip the December 3 awards ceremony — and bail on the normal White House reception for recipients, as well.
“The President and First Lady have decided not to participate in this year’s activities to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction,” an August statement from the White House read.
The White House decision came after some honorees said they would boycott the White House reception. “In light of the socially divisive and morally caustic narrative that our existing leadership is choosing to engage in, and in keeping with the principles that I and so many others have fought for, I will be declining the invitation to attend the reception at the White House,” dancer and choreographer Carmen de Lavallade said.
But Trump beat them to the punch. You don’t want to come? You’re not invited, anyway.
The Kennedy Center ceremony has become increasingly politicized over the years, with inductees taking the opportunity to do what they do best — offer their unsolicited opinions on things they know nothing about. During George W. Bush’s tenure, honoree Paul McCartney skipped the event, rescheduling his award when Barack Obama was president.
This year’s event honored de Lavallade, singers Gloria Estefan and Lionel Richie, rapper LL Cool J and TV writer/producer Norman Lear — who also said he wouldn’t attend a White House reception.
But the absence of Trump didn’t keep the honorees from dissing him. “I’m thankful he chose not to come,” Estefan said on the red carpet. “All it does is overshadow the accomplishments of people who spent a lifetime trying to do something.”
Still, TV experts were expecting the show to pull some big numbers.
“The broadcast should have been a ratings humdinger, marking, as it did, the ceremony’s 40th anniversary and John F. Kennedy’s 100th birthday. But, for the first time in two decades, the President of the United States did not attend the ceremony, saying he and the First Lady were giving it a miss ‘to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction’ – which, loosely translated, means Donald Trump is not in perfect harmony with the arts community,” Deadilne wrote.
“Too bad, because JFK’s daughter Caroline Kennedy gave maybe her zippiest-ever KenCen opening speech, talking about her father’s commitment to ‘the rule of law, to religious tolerance and racial justice, to nuclear disarmament and scientific innovation.'”
Ugh. Now we see why Trump skipped the affair.