People didn’t tune into the first debate between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as much as they did in 2016 when it was Trump versus Hillary Clinton, ratings released Wednesday showed.
About 73.1 million people tuned in to Tuesday’s debate hosted in Cleveland and moderated by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, according to Nielsen Media Research. It fell short of the first debate in 2016, which saw an estimated 84 million viewers, but similar to the viewership of the first debate in 2012, which reached about 67.2 million people.
Fox News came in as the highest-rated cable network, with 17.8 million viewers, followed by ABC News, which reached about 12.6 million. CNN had about 8.3 million viewers, and NBC had 9.7 million, according to Deadline.
Fox News also reached the highest number of viewers in the coveted 25-to-54 age group, with about 5.3 million fitting into that demographic, the network said. ABC again came in second in that age group, with around 4.8 million viewers.
Fox’s prime-time shows hit highs, with Tucker Carlson Tonight reaching 8.3 million viewers prior to the debate and Hannity hitting 7.1 million afterward. The Ingraham Angle reached about 4 million viewers, and Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream had 1.9 million.
The first debate was widely criticized by journalists and pundits for interruptions, personal attacks, and exasperated calls from the moderator to try to quell the overlapping dialogue.
The second debate will take place in Miami on Oct. 15 with C-SPAN’s Steve Scully as the moderator.
