As a political enthusiast with decades of experience under my belt, I must say that Tuesday night’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was quite the spectacle! The ratings speak for themselves – it drew a whopping 57.75 million viewers across various networks, making it one of the most-watched political events in recent history.
The initial (potentially sole) debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and ex-President Donald Trump attracted a significantly bigger viewership compared to the June debate involving Trump and President Joe Biden.
Preliminary viewership estimates for last night’s debate, organized by ABC News and aired on various broadcast and cable channels, indicate approximately 57.75 million viewers tuned in from the major four networks, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, and MSNBC. This is around 6.5 million more viewers than the final count for the June 27 debate between Trump and President Biden. Notably, this figure takes into account fewer networks (eight more were involved in the June event) and does not yet include out-of-home viewing, which is still being calculated for Tuesday’s broadcast.
Initially, the preliminary ratings across all networks for the June debate estimated around 47.9 million viewers. These numbers were later revised and increased to approximately 51.27 million viewers in the final same-day ratings (further updates on final figures will be provided later in the day).
In the heat of the June debate, I found myself struggling to keep up with Biden’s performance. Little did I know that this stumble would lead him to reconsider his re-election plans and throw his support behind Kamala Harris just a month later. It was an unexpected twist in the political game!
On Tuesday night from 9 to 10:45 PM Eastern Time, ABC News’ debate attracted the largest viewership of any single network with a staggering 18.31 million viewers. NBC came in second with 9.7 million viewers, while Fox News followed closely behind with 8.67 million. MSNBC managed to outrank CBS slightly with 6.02 million viewers compared to CBS’s 5.91 million. The Fox broadcast network had 4.74 million viewers, CNN had 4.11 million, and Fox Business had the smallest audience of all with only 287,000 viewers. These figures represent television viewership alone and do not account for streaming.
Although the June debate showed significant progress, Tuesday’s broadcast is unlikely to set new viewership records. In fact, since 1960 (with the exception of 1964, 1968, and 1972), the average audience for televised presidential debates has been approximately 59.1 million viewers. While it’s expected that Tuesday’s numbers will exceed this average, they are likely to be significantly lower than the record 84 million viewers who tuned in for the first debate between Trump and Clinton in 2016. The two debates between Biden and Trump in 2020 averaged 68.05 million viewers each.
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2024-09-11 21:57