'Trump TV' Suffers Abysmal Ratings After Officially Launching as New Option Following Prez's White House Media Ban
Donald Trump's new TV channel has been a huge flop after attracting meager ratings since its launch.
Sept. 25 2026, Published 5:45 p.m. ET
Donald Trump's new TV channel has turned into a humiliating ratings disaster for the president, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
"Trump TV," a 24-hour YouTube livestream of Trump's greatest hits, attracted a measly 700 viewers on Thursday, September 24, for a broadcast of the president's speech at the University of Alabama's graduation ceremony in May 2025.
Disappointing Launch Week
Figures for 'Trump TV' are likely to be below the president's expectations.
That's a considerable fall from the 8,000 viewers who tuned in for the channel’s launch on Monday, September 21, which dropped below 4,000 just 90 minutes later.
By 9 p.m. Eastern, the stream was attracting only about 3,000 viewers, a tiny audience compared with the millions watching the major networks at primetime.
The president launched "Trump TV" in response to banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House last Friday.
Rival TV networks – NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News – suspended their pooled coverage of Trump earlier this week in solidarity, acting as the catalyst for the White House to launch Trump TV: The Essentials Station.
Network Ban Overturned
Trump was forced to end his ban on CNN, MS NOW, and 'Politico.'
Taking to Truth Social last Friday to explain the ban, Trump wrote: "Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America."
However, Trump was ordered to overturn his ban on the three networks by a federal judge,
Meanwhile, the 80-year-old is said to be eyeing turning his self-produced White House coverage into a reality TV-style operation as America's major television networks deprive the president of the cameras that have followed him for decades.
A source familiar with the project claimed: "Trump understands television better than almost any politician in the world, and he isn't going to accept disappearing from people's screens."
Moving Back Into Reality TV?
The president may use channel to broadcast his life at the White House.
"There is a feeling around him that if the traditional networks won't provide the show, the White House can increasingly produce the show itself," the source continued.
"The idea is to make presidential coverage more direct, more entertaining, and more recognizably Trump.
"Nobody should expect him to surrender the medium that helped make his political career. But he is starting to see it as an opportunity to produce some kind of 'Meet the Trumps' reality show from inside the White House, which is a very disturbing prospect.
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Trump has always chased high TV ratings.
"He could end up spending more time chasing ratings than trying to fix the country, as ratings and online traffic clicks have always been his big obsessions."
Television has been central to Trump's public identity long before politics. Ramin Setoodeh, author of Apprentice in Wonderland, said Trump had told him ratings were his fundamental measure of television success.
Setoodeh told the New York Times: "To him, this is equal to being canceled. This is equal to having a hit show and having the networks pull it from the lineup."
He added: "This is a real crisis for the president."
