[blackflame7000]

And the highest rated TV show of all time (Super Bowl XLIX) only managed to attract 115/330 million people so what's your point. Are you arguing that somehow TV viewers are far more likely to be Democrat? Is there some reason that the same distribution of voters wouldn't apply to TV as well?

The final election results were Clinton 65,844,610 Trump 62,979,636 If you call the difference significant (2.2%), then what does that make the gross value of 62 million americans that might be turned off by his rant?

[AbrahamParangi]

I think the point of the objection was that about 19% of Americans voted for trump, instead of "half the country".

Even if this were a strictly cynical action on Colbert's part (and I don't think it is) you could make the argument that given Trump's unpopularity you might create more value out of bashing him than you lose from his supporters.

Moreover, I suspect that Colbert's target demographics skew richer, younger, and urban/suburban so he probably has less to lose and more to gain by alienating Trump supporters anyway.

[blackflame7000]

Assuming everyone that didn't vote has no political opinion, do you think that they would care about Colbert's rant? I addressed the phenomenon of paradoxical popularity reactions to controversies in my original post, but I still don't see the value of insulting anyone when you are in the business of advertising to as wide of audience as possible. Lets not forget TV is an advertisement driven business. Bill OReilly found out pretty quick that it wasn't his analysis that kept him around, it was the sponsors.