MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow pressed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on whether her campaign pushed to limit the number of Democratic debates–and to schedule them in the “TV Siberia” of weekends and holidays.
“The sparse Democratic Party debate schedule this year, particularly when compared to the Republicans, a lot of people in the political press have ascribed that to your campaign, have ascribed that decision to your campaign essentially wanting a low-profile and spare debate schedule,” Maddow said during an interview with Clinton Monday night.
Clinton suggested the networks themselves–especially the broadcast networks–wanted weekends. “For most broadcast networks, Saturday or Sunday was preferable,” Clinton said.
While a Democratic debate on CNN–on a Tuesday evening–attracted more than 15 million viewers, Democratic debates on weekends have had smaller audiences, including an ABC debate before Christmas that delivered 7.8 million and Sunday night’s debate on NBC, which had an audience of 10.2 million.