For 11 weeks this year, Americans did not see John McCain, the Arizona Republican senator, on any of five Sunday news shows.
The republic survived his absence, but it was highly irregular for the Sunday shows — NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’s “Face the Nation,” ABC’s “This Week,” “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” When it comes to appearing on these programs, Mr. McCain might as well have his own segment: Since the beginning of 2009, he has appeared 97 times, more often than any other current or former politician, according to The Upshot’s analysis of data collected on the shows by American University researchers.
In honor of Mr. McCain, The Upshot has created the McCain Count, a measure of how often figures from politics, journalism and other walks of life appear on the Sunday morning talk shows. Even with smaller audiences than they once had, these shows continue to play an outsize role in influencing the debate in Washington and among the roughly eight million viewers who tune in each week.
But the people who appear on the shows are rarely a representative cross section of national politics. Men appear on the shows far more often than women, reflecting the relative dearth of women in Congress. The gender imbalance hasn’t changed much in the last several years either. Politicians from the states that surround Washington — and don’t have to travel to faraway home districts on the weekend — are also more likely to appear on the shows.
And then there is the indisputable fact that some politicians are simply a lot more popular with show bookers than others. Mr. McCain tops the McCain Count, of course. Coming next are Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican senator and ally of Mr. McCain; David Axelrod, the former strategist for President Obama, now an NBC contributor; and Richard Durbin of Illinois, who is the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat.
The Upshot has created a list of all those who have appeared on shows since the beginning of 2009, along with their personal McCain Count. Ben Affleck and George Clooney? Three each. President Obama? Twelve. Arianna Huffington and Ron Paul have each appeared 19 times. You can look at a full ranking of the McCain Count or search for individuals.
Normally, the shows’ viewers have had to wait fewer than 21 days to see Mr. McCain on their screens: In 70 instances, they could have seen him within the three previous weeks.
The party leaders in the Senate and the House are fairly regular guests, with the exception of Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, who has made just eight appearances. A 2010 New York Times Magazine story explained that Mr. Reid “skips the Sunday talk shows because he is an anemic television presence,” and he has earned a reputation for saying some impolitic things.
Most of his colleagues don’t pass on the opportunity, and television bookers appear to favor senators over their House counterparts: Just 27 percent of current House members have appeared on the shows, compared with 72 percent of current senators. Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, tops the list of House lawmakers with 62 appearances. He’s retiring this year and moving on to host a radio show. Trailing Mr. Rogers among representatives is Paul D. Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who was his party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2012.
Lawmakers use the appearances to boost their national profiles, routinely issuing news releases describing the topics they discussed, or even sending out notices in advance of their appearances.
Proximity almost certainly has something to do with the rate of appearances among elected officials: Among the 24 members of the House who have appeared at least 10 times, five are from Maryland, which usually means a short trip to Washington network studios. Maryland’s delegation has seven Democrats and one Republican.
By a wide margin, the shows are an overwhelmingly male affair. Women represent about one in four people on the shows, including network employees and regular contributors. Only one current female elected official has appeared on a single show more than 10 times since the beginning of 2009: Dianne Feinstein, the California Democratic senator who heads the Intelligence Committee. Ms. Feinstein’s 40 total appearances are the most for a woman who isn’t a network employee or regular contributor.
Sunday Talk Show Guests Mostly Men
“Although women make fewer appearances on the Sunday shows than men, their presence is comparable to the presence of women in the political professions from which guests are chosen to appear,” said Gail Baitinger, a doctoral candidate at American who is writing her dissertation using the Sunday show appearance data. “The gender gap in appearances between women and men reflects women’s underrepresentation in those fields.”
The shows have branched out beyond politics to pull in guests from sports and entertainment; at least 14 actors have appeared. Former professional athletes have been on at least 26 times. A variety of authors, speakers and academics join the regular parade of journalists, including at least 136 appearances by employees of The New York Times and more than 200 by Washington Post journalists.
Since the beginning of 2009, 16 people have achieved the “full Ginsburg” by appearing on all five shows on the same day, including former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton (who made joint appearances on Jan. 17, 2010, to discuss Haiti earthquake relief). Named for William H. Ginsburg, the lawyer for Monica Lewinsky who in February 1998 appeared on all five shows in a single Sunday, it is more common of late. Nine of the 16 recent Ginsburgers were Obama administration officials, but Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, and Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman, have all done it. Bob Dudley, a BP executive, also did it after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.