Like many scandals, Watergate slowly built to be part of everyday life. For example, while the Washington Post immediately covered the break-in story, the New York Times didn't report on it until a day or so later on a back page. It was clearly considered to be a local DC story with little interest.

While the story eventually got bigger over the rest of 1972, it never likely reached the general public as a "real" story, mostly because the cover-up definitely helped to keep it largely ignored as the White House continued to deny any involvement. It also didn't help that it was general clear that George McGovern had virtually no chance to win the 1972 election and his comments on the event likely smacked of desperation by most people. There is no question that the Vietnam War was more a part of the lives of the average American, as possible a possible peace treaty became more likely.

Watergate finally began to break out when burglar James McCord wrote a letter to the judge in the original trial (John Sirica), alleging payoffs and a coverup. It wasn't long after that when the United States Senate formed a special committee, chaired by Same Ervin to study the campaign. The committee hearings were televised live during the daytime, interrupting soap operas and other programming, and were regular topics on the evening news. In addition, there were still many afternoon newspapers being published, making for print stories of Watergate appearing TWICE a day. Because of the regular events happening, this made for a steady stream of new material that kept the story in the public eye.

Of course, since so much of the story was based only on witness testimony, with no way to corroborate the information, it became a he said/he said situation, where Nixon's defenders could defend him without worrying about evidence to the contrary.

The story really took off once the taping system was revealed, almost by accident. For the first time, the special prosecutor had a way to get proof of much of the damning testimony, most notably by that of John Dean, who actually contributed to the speculation that there might be some recordings (although nobody knew the extent of the actual system).

From this point forward, Watergate would be a regular part of every day, as the legal fight went on. When Nixon released edited transcripts of some of the tapes, the average person could read them in the newspaper and their quick publication in paperbacks. When Nixon fired the special prosecutor on a Saturday, the story filled the evening, preempting regular shows. It was hard to go a day without a Watergate-related story on the front page of the paper or a lead story on the evening news.

Watergate actually didn't completely fade from the view of the general public until long after Nixon resigned for a variety of reasons, including Gerald Ford's pardon, later investigations into the intelligence agencies, etc.