Debate Outdraws Biden-Trump

Preliminary figures show ABC with biggest slice of network viewers
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 11, 2024 4:30 PM CDT
At Least 57.5M Watch Debate, Topping Biden-Trump Matchup
People gather outside the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive to watch a debate Tuesday between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in Berkeley, California.   (Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Early results show at least 57.5 million people watched Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump debate Tuesday night, host network ABC reports. That's a bigger audience than Trump's debate with President Biden attracted in June, per NBC News. Nielsen, the media analytics company, counted 51.3 million watchers for that one, after the preliminary data showed 47.9 million. Tuesday's count includes viewership on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC; streaming numbers will follow.

A breakdown shows about 17.8 million of the people watching Tuesday were adults ages 25 to 54, and 4.8 million were adults ages 18 to 49, per ABC. The host network drew the lion's share of network viewers, per the Hollywood Reporter, at 18.31 million. NBC was second with 9.7 million watching. None of the totals breaks any records. The average TV audience for debates since 1960 is 59.7 million. (More presidential debate stories.)

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