I think you'll find that the majority of the population is not interested in space exploration or development so it is quite okay to assume they would watch ESC over the launch.
Space X is an important step in space exploration. It got less coverage than ESC - perhaps ESC is a poor example. What else did SpaceX get less coverage than?
Let's not forget that media companies are businesses. They need audiences to survive and so they cannot cater to a certain demographic if they want a lot of profit.
I don't think concluding that people don't care about the space launch because it wasn't covered is fair. It's obvious a lot of people do (see Reddit, HN, et al).