• by Wayne Friedman , May 6, 2016

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to score the highest “earned media” value -- but other candidates are seeing improved results as well.

Media researcher mediaQuant says Donald Trump pulled in $392 million worth of earned media in April. Next was former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, $242.7 million; Democratic Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, $233.6 million; and Democratic Presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders at $173.6 million.

Farther down is former Republican presidential candidate John Kasich at $43 million.

The researcher calculates earned media from all press coverage, such as TV news coverage, print articles, and online stories -- as well as mentions in online search, tweets, blogs, social media and discussion forums.

For the last 12-month period, Trump has easily had the highest earned media value of any candidate, at $2.8 billion, according to mediaQuant -- more than other candidates combined. Clinton is currently at $1.2 billion, followed by Cruz at $770.6 million, Sanders with $657.9 million and Kasich at $123.4 million.

Many analysts have criticized the electronic and print press for over-reporting on Trump's campaign. He now looks to be the Republican nominee.

MediaQuant surveys 14 traditional and social media segments -- worldwide newspapers, TV broadcast, blogs, Twitter, consumer media, some 100,000 global news sources overall. The researcher also provides a top-line rating to provide an overall measure of media prominence.