So this week I’ve been noticing a small but substantial collection of articles claiming that the RNC was outdrawing the DNC in terms of eyeballs and it gave me some concern. After further research I discovered that almost all of these were couched in weasel words like “”Streaming” and “Faux Overnight Ratings”. As it turns out “Political Apprentice” did ok for Cable but nowhere near Network numbers.
President Trump’s acceptance speech draws 21.6 million TV viewers, trailing the audience for Biden
By Stephen Battaglio, Los Angeles Times
Aug. 28, 2020
The final night of the Republican convention, which featured President Trump’s acceptance speech from the White House South Lawn, had an average audience of 21.6 million viewers Thursday, putting it behind the TV turnout for his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.
The early number from Nielsen that includes ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, Univision and the three major cable news networks is 8% lower than the comparable figure for Biden’s speech at his convention on Aug. 20.
The final total for Trump’s speech out later today will be slightly higher, as it includes PBS and other networks that carried the speech. Biden’s final total was 24.6 million viewers.
Trump’s total will also finish well below the 35 million TV viewers who watched him accept his party’s nomination in 2016, and will fall short of the acceptance speeches of previous Republican nominees John McCain (38.9 million viewers in 2008), Mitt Romney (30.3 million viewers in 2012) and George W. Bush (27.6 million in 2004).
TV viewing for both 2020 conventions is down from four years ago, as many viewers are likely to have watched some portion of the event through online streaming platforms which are not included in the Nielsen ratings.
Additionally, Trump’s audience was probably diminished by the 70-minute length of his address, which ended after 11:30 p.m. Eastern. The number of people watching television typically declines as the night goes on.
TV commentators noted the duration of Trump’s speech, but it was actually shorter than his 2016 address, which clocked in at 75 minutes.
Fox News was the most-watched channel for coverage between 10 and 11:45 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, with an average of 9.2 million viewers, followed by ABC (2.6 million), NBC (2.3 million), CNN (2.2 million) and MSNBC (1.85 million), CBS (1.78 million), Univision (927,000) and Telemundo (804,000).
Yeah, Faux, I know.