More than 71 million Americans tuned in to watch election coverage Tuesday night, coming in just 50,000 under the 2008 record, when President Obama won his first term.
About 71.42 million people watched the election returns come in during primetime coverage on 13 U.S. networks. CNN led the networks during the evening, averaging 13.3 million viewers, while Fox News mustered 12.1 million viewers and MSNBC pulled in just under 6 million people.
Among broadcast networks, ABC finished with 9.2 million watchers, CBS had 8.1 million and Fox hauled in 4 million.
Fox News outperformed all networks for the night as a whole, from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., especially at the conclusion when President-elect Donald Trump gave his speech around 3 a.m. Nearly 10 million people were still watching the election events unfold on Fox, while 6.5 million stuck around on CNN and just under 3 million continued to tune in to MSNBC.
