Incredibly, there are fewer debates this year than in 2008 even though it feels endless
Is the 2016 presidential campaign over yet?
With the general election still more than nine months away, the Republican candidates for president take the stage Thursday night for their 14 millionth debate.
On second look, it's actually the 10th debate, but you have to forgive us. It certainly feels like more.
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If it seems like this election season has been overwhelming, we have some surprising news for you -- this is nothing compared to 2012.
For that election, the Republicans held 20 debates in the span of 10 months.
This time around, we've had 10 in the span of seven months.
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Of course, this time around we've got the Republicans and Democrats, so for a fair comparison maybe we need to go back to 2008.
Bad news -- it was even crazier then.
Debate club
In the 2008 election, the two parties combined for a whopping 37 debates on major television channels.
By comparison, the 23 total debates (between already held and those scheduled) for 2016 is pretty average compared to other years in which there was no incumbent.
That does not include some of the additional events like the town halls hosted by CNN and Fox News, but even the addition of them doesn't make much of a difference. This is still a lighter year than 2008.
There's a quick delineation to be made between debates that are and aren't sanctioned by the major parties. As noted by FiveThirtyEight, there has been a significant increase in the number of unsanctioned debates in the past few elections, bloating the overall debate numbers.
Either way, the sense that this election seems to have broken the space-time continuum (and is now just how we will all live) can't be blamed on the number of debates.
Demand meet supply
Nor does it seem that the broader public shares in the feeling.
Ratings for the debates thus have been routinely blowing away previous years, with the first Republican debate on Fox News drawing 24 million viewers -- almost tripling the channel's previous ratings high.
Ratings have declined over the past few debates, but even the most recent debates have drawn big audiences, with 8 million for the Democrats and 13.5 million for the Republicans.
Yet there seems to be a palpable sense among the U.S. media that its running a marathon way too fast.
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Burnout.com
Michael Calderone, senior media reporter at the Huffington Post, said that an explosion in the number of media outlets covering the election combined with major public interest have upped the ante, particularly around big events like debates.
"The real difference between now and two [election] cycles ago is you have just the sheer intensity of coverage has amped up because you have so many more players in the game," Calderone said.
Now, debates are like mini Super Bowls.
"You have CNN, which runs a countdown clock now two days before for one of these things hapens," Calderone said.
Joe Rospars, CEO of political media consultancy Blue State Digital, said that the increase in the number of media outlets pushing content to users on more platforms has led to an explosion in coverage, much of it on the minutiae of the race.
"When you scale up the coverage into more platforms iwth more reporters tracking more day-to-day political back and forth, the overall substance of it is even more diluted form its previously, in my opinion, inadequate level," Rospars said.
That's the kind of atmosphere that is perfect for Trump, he added.
"The media has somewhat gotten the candidate that they deserve in Trump, and thats something that's hopefully going to change," he noted.
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Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
