Last night’s first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was regarded as an un-watchable mess by many. And sure enough it’s on course to garner a much smaller viewership than the previous election cycle.
According to early fast national numbers for the broadcast networks, a total of just under 29 million viewers tuned in last night across NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox. That represents roughly a 35% fall from the first Trump-Hillary Clinton debate, which had over 45 million viewers at the same stage.
For comparison, the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton four years was watched by a total of 84 million people when all final figures were factored in. That still represents the largest audience ever for a presidential debate. It remains to be seen how far off that mark this most recent shambolic debate will be once the cable news networks and more accurate later numbers become available. This story will be update once they are.
Prior to the 2016 election cycle, the most watched debate was the sole 1980 sparring session between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, which drew around 81 million pairs of eyeballs.
The previous most watched debate was the 1980 contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan — the only one between the two candidates — which drew 80.6 million total viewers. In the 2012 election cycle, the most watched debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney drew just over 67 million total viewers.
Elsewhere on broadcast last night, “The Weakest Link” premiered to a solid 1.3 rating and 6.1 million total viewers. “Love Island” scored a 0.6 and 2.8 million viewers for CBS, while a new episode of “Cosmos: Possible Worlds” delivered a 0.5 and just over 2 million viewers.
More to come…