Seven Letter

New from Seven Letter Insight: Tracking who tuned in to President Trump’s 2025 Joint Address to Congress Streaming online has become second nature for most people who prefer convenience over tuning into traditional broadcast television at a set time – but Americans still collectively watch important events live. So, who was tuning in to Trump’s Joint Address to Congress last week? ? Nielsen tracks joint addresses to Congress across TV networks each year. What they found: 13% more viewers tuned into Trump’s speech this year (36.6 million) than they did to Joe Biden’s Final State of the Union address last year (32.2 million viewers). ? Nielsen found that Fox News Channel led with the highest viewership, drawing 10.7 million viewers. ABC followed with 6.3 million, CBS had 4 million, NBC attracted 3.9 million, Fox Broadcast reached 2.7 million, and both CNN and MSNBC garnered 1.9 million viewers each. ? Even with such high viewership, there was stark age disparity: nearly three quarters of viewers (71%) were over the age of 55, compared to just 5.7% of viewers ages 18-34 and 20.5% ages 35-54. ??? Take a look at the full Nielsen report here: https://lnkd.in/ehxdQGpv?

ICYMI: Annalyse Keller and Brendan Buck are joined by POLITICO's Nicholas Wu this week on CONTROL. Listen to the latest episode here:?https://lnkd.in/eYNGER_E? ?

Happening today at 2ET: webinar with Seven Letter Insight & @lpa_sacramento on "California Speaks" - a statewide survey of CA voters on pressing public policy issues. Register here:?https://lnkd.in/etzgRXyq

Can Speaker Johnson can muster the votes for a CR? What will Democrats discuss at their retreat as they look for a way out of the wilderness?Brendan Buck and Annalyse Keller are joined by POLITICO congressional reporter Nicholas Wu to answer these questions and more on the latest episode of CONTROL. Listen now:?Https://https://lnkd.in/eYNGER_E?

New from Seven Letter Insight - Marking a Milestone: Female Protagonists Secure Equal Representation in Top-Grossing Films in 2024? Film and television impact society by serving as influential mediums for entertainment, education, and social commentary. After 2023’s “Barbie” movie takeover and blockbusters like Inside Out 2, Wicked, The Substance, and Moana 2, it’s easy to think that most major films have starred female protagonists in leading roles. ? However, the data tells a different story: for just the first time, the percentage of top-grossing films featuring?female protagonists (the character from whose perspective the story is told) equaled the percentage of films with male leads.? To understand women’s representation in film, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University analyzed 2,000 characters in 2024’s 100 top-grossing domestic films. What they found:?42% of the top films featured female protagonists, while 42% had male protagonists – the first-time female protagonists had reached parity with males on screen. The percentage of female leads jumped up more than 10 percentage points from 2023 (28%) -- and is nearly 4x higher than the lowest year studied, 2011, when a measly 11% of the year’s top-grossing films featured female protagonists.? Despite this progress, the study also found that, overall, just 21% of films had more female than male characters. These findings provide a mixed but promising outlook of the developing representation of women in mainstream cinema: while progress is being made, there is still an imbalance. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, with more films featuring female protagonists and diverse perspectives, there is hope that this trend will continue to grow. Take a look at the full report here: https://lnkd.in/e5xvtS5F

What goes into responding to a State of the Union address? On the lates episode of CONTROL, Michael Ricci joins?Brendan Buck & Annalyse Keller to discuss one of the hardest jobs in politics.?https://lnkd.in/eHrydYde

President Trump is heading up to the Hill to address Congress. On a new episode of CONTROL, Brendan Buck and Annalyse Keller discuss the outlook for his agenda: What are the next steps for reconciliation? Can the Senate make the budget math work? And will a government shutdown get in the way? Special guest Chad Pergram, Senior?Congressional Correspondent for Fox News TV joins shares his insights based on more than 30 years covering Capitol Hill.?Catch up on the latest now:?https://lnkd.in/eHrydYde

New from Seven Letter Insight: The Continued Impact of COVID Learning Loss on Students Though COVID-19 might seem a lifetime ago, America’s students are still recovering from the learning loss that stemmed from pandemic-era remote learning. To explore how students are testing in wake of the pandemic, researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth compiled the Education Recovery Scorecard, which was released earlier this month. To compile this comprehensive report, researchers used the test score results from about 11,000 school districts across 43 states to determine the extent to which the math and reading proficiency of students in grades 3-8 changed from Spring 2019 to Spring 2022, and Spring 2022 to Spring 2024.? Education is the foundation of how we grow, learn, and contribute to society, so ensuring students are proficient in important subjects like math and reading is vital. Unfortunately, the report found that American students are currently about half a grade level behind where they were before the pandemic in both math and reading. While no state has seen improvements in either subject from 2019 to 2024, the rate of decline isn’t equal nationwide: test scores have declined much more in low- and middle-income communities than they have in wealthier ones.? Just 17% of students in grades 3-8 are in districts where the average math achievement is higher than it was in 2019. Reading levels are even more difficult to improve; a mere 11% of students are in districts that have recovered in reading.?? ? Chronic absenteeism, which worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, continues to hinder post-pandemic academic recovery – especially in high-poverty school districts. Before the pandemic, in 2019, the national absenteeism rate was 15%; over the course of the pandemic, that number nearly doubled, to 29% in 2022. However, things are looking up: the rate of chronic absenteeism has improved slightly since 2023, when the rate was 26%. In the 20 states reporting attendance data through Spring 2024, chronic absenteeism has decreased to 24% -- a modest improvement, but improvement nonetheless. So what can schools do to make up the learning gap? The report concluded that, while there’s still a long way to go, student achievement grew more in districts that spent more on academic interventions, like tutoring or summer school. And hopefully, with more academic interventions and increasing attendance, America’s school districts can start improving students’ proficiency and reading in math – to set them up for success in high school and beyond. Take a look at the full Education Recovery Scorecard here: Pivoting-from-Pandemic-Recovery-to-Long-Term-Reform-A-District-Level-Analysis.pdf

ICYMI – CONTROL is back every week Congress is in session. Tune into this week's episode here: https://lnkd.in/eCfvExGG

After weeks of buildup, the moment of truth arrives – can Speaker Johnson pass the budget resolution? This week on CONTROL, hosts Brendan Buck and Annalyse Keller dive into all the scenarios at play and how the Senate will respond after advancing down their two-bill track. Catch up on the latest now:?https://lnkd.in/eCfvExGG