At War with Bolsonaro, Globo’s Jornal Nacional Breaks Record, Viewed by 34 Million

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The open war between Globo’s ‘Jornal Nacional’ (National News) and President Jair Bolsonaro peaked last week and led the main Brazilian news broadcaster to climb in IBOPE poll figures, achieving its best results in more than two months.

The 34 million viewers record was topped, outperforming the 9 PM telenovela (soap opera) ‘A Dona do Pedaço’. Rio-based Globo is the biggest media company in Latin America and, thanks to its extraordinary reach, some see it as the real center of power in Brazil.

‘NaTelinha’ survey with data from Kantar IBOPE released on Tuesday, November 5th for the PNT (National Television Panel), shows that the National News was watched by 34 million Brazilians last week, surpassing the audience of ‘A Dona do Pedaço’ by 200,000 viewers.

The data refer to 15 cities where Kantar IBOPE is measured. In terms of points, the National News reached an average of 30.6 points against 39.0 points for A Dona do Pedaço. The difference in terms of viewers is due to the fact that the score measures the average number of viewers, while millions indicate the total coverage of a show.

The numbers show that this was the best performance for the show anchored by William Bonner and Renata Vasconcellos since mid-August, i.e., more than 70 days, just the week the Jornal Nacional entered an undeclared war with President Jair Bolsonaro.

It all began when the news broadcaster reported that a gatekeeper at Bolsonaro’s residential condo in Rio de Janeiro had testified to the police that one of the suspects of murdering city councilor Marielle Franco had accessed the compound with permission from “Mr. Jair”.

Minutes after the report was aired, Jair Bolsonaro released a live broadcast on his social media attacking the Rio de Janeiro network, to the extent that Globo released an official note defending itself. Since then, the president has been interviewed by ‘Jornal da Record’ and ‘Domingo Espetacular’, invariably attacking the Rio de Janeiro media giant.