Posted on 08/07/2015 8:38:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Early overnight Nielsen ratings suggest that Thursday's Republican debate was not just the most-watched primary debate in history -- it may have been twice as big as the previous record-holder.
The debate on Fox News had a 16.0 household rating between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., according to Nielsen. Translation: 16% of United States homes with TV sets tuned in.
Fox News usually has 1% or 2% of the household audience.
For the sake of comparison, the highest-rated Republican primary debates in 2011 and 2012 were watched by approximately 5% of households.
The Democratic primary debates in 2008 were bigger, but none of those ever topped 10%.
Interest in Donald Trump's candidacy almost certainly drove viewership on Thursday night.
There are two important asterisks here: The household ratings may change somewhat once Nielsen completes its counting. And raw viewership totals are not available yet. Nielsen will release that data sometime Friday afternoon.
But the preliminary ratings, known as "metered market overnights," indicate that upward of 10 million viewers tuned to Fox for the prime time debate.
The first Republican primary debate in 2011, also on Fox, was watched by 3.2 million people.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Moderators were unprofessional and disgraceful!
We actually reconnected our cable television to see the debate.
Fox may have gotten record viewers but were those same viewers pleased with how the debate unfolded? The simple answer is NO. Read the reviews on how the moderators acted toward those high level candidates, they were rude and condescending, in particular against Trump. One the other hand the gave Bush the softballs. Basically the ignored Walker and Cruz since they were down a bit in the “polls”.
I hate polls.
I see this as a good thing in that it will encourage more debates.
The debates are already scheduled, and the number was reduced quite a few from last cycle when by this time we were on the third debate. What this does is encourage fewer, more confrontational (by the immoderators) debates.
In trying to be above suspicion the biggest irony for the Fox news network, having a past reputation for being to the right of the rest of the MSM——with its relentless castigation of Trump, it underlined the bias of the rest of the MSM.
Meghan what’s-her-name may have shot what reputation she had, Wallace looked like his Dad going after a straight baker, and even usually temperate Brett Baier came off as extreme. Way to go Fox. We conservatives will go back to not watching you.
While to a certain extent, I agree with your assessment. My post was based on my perception that the history of political debates has not brought much commercial success.
The general perception that political debates were about as interesting as watching paint dry.
Now that perception has changed. Debates can gather interest and can even amount to a huge ratings bump. The go forward question is how does that translate? Does it turn into goat and pony show or will the be a real discussion of the issues?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.