The nation's Big Three networks have lavished news coverage on flamboyant Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, one of the latest to get into the race, according to a review of nightly broadcasts dating to January 1.

The conservative media watchdog, the Media Research Center, found that Trump has received about 10 times the average amount of airtime given to the other 16 candidates combined, with the last one to get in, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, still waiting for his first second of coverage.

The CBS, ABC and NBC evening newscasts have already dedicated 116 minutes of a total of 315 minutes to covering Trump, the real estate mogul leading the GOP primary race by a wide margin. The remainder, when divided by 16, is about 12 minutes each.



Next is Jeb Bush, with 72 minutes, and after that it trails off dramatically with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie third with 28 minutes.

But MRC, who partners with Secrets for the weekly " Mainstream Media Scream" feature, said that Trump has been a good thing for getting the GOP race some coverage.

The report written by MRC Research Director Rich Noyes, said, "While coverage of Trump far exceeds that of the other GOP candidates, it's somewhat misleading to say that the networks' emphasis on Trump has come at the expense of the other candidates. MRC's analysis shows Trump's candidacy has sparked the networks to increase their attention to a Republican race that had previously been receiving only light news coverage."

Noyes dubbed it the "Trump Effect," but as anybody who watches the news has seen, the coverage is fairly critical.



"The heavy coverage of Trump has also been largely critical. More than half of the evening news airtime focused on Trump's inflammatory comment about illegal immigrants from Mexico (40 minutes of airtime, or about 34 percent of Trump's coverage) and his apparent belittling of Senator John McCain's war record (28 minutes, or 24 percent of the coverage). Other negative controversies (general complaints about his rhetoric, his spats with other candidates) accounted for another 14 percent of Trump's total airtime (16 minutes)," he wrote.

It was a huge project. MRC reviewed all 209 evening news stories that discussed the GOP nomination race from January 1 through July 31.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com. Donald Trump gets a lot of air time http://washex.am/1g1BP00 in Washington Examiner's Hangs on LockerDome