Just like the CD sales that drive the music charts, politics seems to be declining in popularity, going by the Crikey/Media Monitors Tuesday Top 20 for the week of 15-21 May 2007.

Overall, political discussion in the media was down about 20% as media fatigue finally caught up with a lack of engagement from voters and the polls showed no one was paying attention to the Budget.

The media focus, however, was firmly on the PM, and whether he’s personally to blame for the Government’s poll numbers. Coverage of Kevin Rudd and Peter Costello was way down. In more bad news for the Government, the Minister for WorkSomethings Joe Hockey and Malcolm Turnbull climbed the charts as controversy raged over IR, water and whales.

Peter Garrett got his quid’s worth in on matters environment, Philip Ruddock rode up the charts on David Hicks’s coat-tails and Chris Pyne moved into the Top 20 bagging the AFL for its soft approach to recreational drugs.

TW
(Move) 

Politician

Press

Radio

TV

Internet

Grand Total

1
(0)

John Howard

837

9,287

4,835

7,430

22,389

2
(0)

Kevin Rudd

557

5,005

2,570

5,259

13,391

3
(0)

Peter Costello

334

1,328

1,114

3,170

5,946

4
(2)

Julia Gillard

146

2,340

1,288

2,018

5,792

5
(8)

Joe Hockey

114

2,247

914

949

4,224

6
(8)

Malcolm Turnbull

85

1,671

556

1,021

3,333

7
(1)

Peter Beattie

161

1,476

383

1,029

3,049

8
(-4)

Alexander Downer

119

821

434

1,410

2,784

9
(0)

Morris Iemma

94

1,392

335

683

2,504

10
(-5)

Wayne Swan

71

893

480

679

2,123

11
(16)

Philip Ruddock

70

785

483

522

1,860

12
(4)

Greg Combet

60

548

286

730

1,624

13
(2)

Tony Abbott

60

678

306

456

1,500

14
(-4)

Steve Bracks

129

318

151

820

1,418

15
(2)

Mal Brough

46

438

304

354

1,142

16
(-5)

Mark Vaille

28

568

87

406

1,089

17
(9)

Chris Pyne

33

679

125

223

1,060

18
(11)

Peter Garrett

24

343

101

586

1,054

19
(-1)

Bill Heffernan

29

510

53

413

1,005

20
(-1)

Alan Carpenter

70

380

35

489

974

The talkback charts reflect the focus on the polls and industrial relations.

Rank

Politician

Talkback

1

John Howard

1,112

2

Kevin Rudd

500

3

Joe Hockey

173

4

Julia Gillard

86

5

Morris Iemma

80

There’s more on the week’s issues at Media Monitors Media Index. 

And as our comparison with the real world this week, we’re using the real Rocky Balboa, Sylvester Stallone. Peter Costello doesn’t realise, but Rocky became champion because he did more than jog. He had the guts to challenge.

Sylvester Stallone

34

2,128

845

169

3,176