Screenshot via YouTube
Joe Rogan took a shot at CNN’s ratings compared to viewership for his podcast while discussing their 2021 coverage of him announcing he had Covid and was prescribed a number of medications, including ivermectin.
Rogan recalled the controversy during a chat with comedian Akaash Singh, who asked Rogan what his first thought was when he saw CNN air his video announcing his medication lineup prescribed by his doctor. Rogan and others accused CNN of manipulating the color of the video to make him look more sickly. CNN denied this and an Associated Press fact check found no evidence of manipulation.
Readers can judge for themselves by both watching the CNN video here and the original Rogan post here.
“My first thought is this’ll work a little bit until I start talking,” Rogan said.
He added that he wasn’t concerned about negative coverage from CNN because he claimed his audience is so much larger.
“They didn’t understand that I have way more people that listen to my podcast than they have, way more,” he said.
It’s difficult to gauge the total audiences of Rogan and CNN since both are spread onto multiple platforms. Bloomberg reported last month that Spotify tested a feature disclosing podcast numbers, and Rogan had 14.5 million followers, making him nearly three times more popular than the next most popular podcast. That number would also massively dwarf CNN’s cable numbers, which did see an uptick in Q1.
Rogan has also begun posting episodes to YouTube again after a more exclusive arrangement with Spotify. The episode with Singh has brought in more than 600,000 viewers there.
Ivermectin was popularly referred to as “horse dewormer” medication after the Rogan video, but the medication can be prescribed to people as it was to Rogan. The comedian accused CNN of making him look “yellow.”
“That’s crazy if you think you’re going to make me look yellow. Like, the video’s still on my Instagram, you fucking idiots,” he said. “Everybody can see what I really looked like.”
Rogan argued some people still believe he took “veterinary medicine.”
“There’s still people who think I took veterinary medicine. There’s still people that think I was an idiot for taking ivermectin. There’s a bunch of people, they’re surface-level readers, they read headlines, they watch a quick clip on CNN. That’s their consumption of media,” he said. “But most people are not like that anymore. Most people have a real keen understanding that these people are viciously corrupt and coordinated.”
Watch above via the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
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