There’s no debate about it: Thursday was a big night for CNN, and for the 22 other networks that carried the U.S. Presidential Debate.
According to preliminary Nielsen numbers, the simulcast of President Joe Biden vs. former president Donald Trump averaged 47.9 million viewers. These early numbers do not include out-of-home viewing, mobile, and PC viewing. Updated numbers will be revealed in a few hours and they will bring the total a bit higher. No matter what that adjustment is, however, it won’t bring the tally close to the Biden-Trump debates of 2020.
Thursday’s debate, hosted and moderated by CNN, was simulcast across 23 platforms in total: ABC, Fox, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, News Nation, Newsmax, C-SPAN, Scripps News, Univision, Bloomberg, Telemundo, Fox Business, TheGrio, The First, OAN, BET, Newsmax 2, Spectrum News, and Merit Street.
CNN averaged 8.7 million viewers tune in to its cable news channel. Fox News Channel averaged 8.8 million, the most for any individual platform. The debate began at 9 p.m. ET and ended at 10:39 p.m. ET, though live coverage continued in analysis form.
While this was the first debate of the 2024 presidential-election cycle, Biden and Trump have, of course, debated before. And it’s been even bigger — much bigger, in fact. The first 2020 Presidential Debate, on September 29, 2020, drew 73.132 million total viewers, good enough for third place all-time. That one was simulcast on 16 different platforms: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Telemundo, Univision, PBS, CNN, CNN en Español, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Newsmax, Newsy, Vice, and WGN America.
