CNN entered the campaign season in a very different position. Some 18 months ago Wall Street analysts were questioning whether the network, then sinking near 20-year ratings lows, had a place in the new ecosystem of “unlimited real-time information,” as my colleague Emily Steel wrote at the time. With CNN’s debates and heavy coverage of Mr. Trump, the network’s ratings have increased about 170 percent in prime time this year.

That’s more than a reason to boast; it’s an adrenaline shot to the heart.

Understandably, Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, was beaming when I saw him at a lunch with other reporters last week. “These numbers are crazy — crazy,” he said, referring to the ratings. How crazy? Two-hundred-thousand-dollars-per-30-second-spot crazy on debate nights, 40 times what CNN makes on an average night, according to Advertising Age. That’s found money.

It certainly has to take the sting out of the criticism that CNN has handed its schedule over to Mr. Trump, which is a little unfair in that it is hardly alone. The New York Times’s Upshot team, using data from mediaQuant, reported last week that Mr. Trump had received nearly $1.9 billion worth of news coverage; his next closest Republican competitor, Ted Cruz, received a little more than $300 million. Hillary Clinton has received less than $750 million.