Posted on 07/23/2016 6:34:12 AM PDT by usafa92
The Republican National Convention clearly reached its crescendo on Thursday night. The four-day run-up until Donald Trump's accepting of the nomination, while giving a strong ratings performance, did not bring any atypical highs for the political meetup. Trump's speech didn't change that narrative by much.
With all three broadcast networks and cable news networks now tallied for the 10 p.m. hour, it appears just over 32 million viewers tuned into Trump's extended time on stage.
On the broadcast networks alone Thursday night, Trump's time on the stage brought in 12.3 million viewers to the 10 o'clock hour on through the speech's conclusion at 11:37 p.m. ET. NBC News led its fourth and final night of primetime coverage with an average 4.6 million viewers tuning in, per Nielsen Media's Fast Affiliate ratings. ABC News, which preciously topped CBS on Monday, averaged 3.9 million viewers. CBS News took 3.8 million viewers. Spanish-language net Univision contributed another 1.3 million viewers.
Cable news brought the biggest lifts particularly for Fox News Channel and CNN. FNC, a favorite for right-leaning audiences, topped them all with 9.4 million viewers. And CNN, hitting an all-time high for its RNC coverage, also topped all of the broadcast networks with 5.5 million viewers. MSNBC, trailing, averaged 2.95 million viewers. (Nielsen's delivery of the 32-million stat also includes Fox Business Network, CNBC and NBC Universo.)
Prior to Thursday, the broadcast networks have been contributing in the area of 10 million viewers to gross RNC ratings. The cable news aggregate typically topped that showing by a million-or-so viewers. High ratings have certainly the candidate's mind. His latest tweet, as of Friday morning, crowed about the RNC ratings. But it is now clear his ratings record-breaking is limited to debate appearances.
To prove to be a bigger draw than RNC headliners of the recent past, Trump's final tally would need to be higher than 30.3 million to top Mitt Romney in 2012. The candidate already has that in the bag. But with nearly 40 million viewers tuning into John McCain in 2008, that showing will not be matched.
The TV race in the key news demographic of adults 25-54 saw rankings for total viewership hold. FNC (2.5 million) and CNN (1.9 million) topped them all, with NBC News (1.8 million) leading broadcast coverage. ABC (1.4 million), CBS (1.2 million) and MSNBC (927,000) followed.
Prior to Thursday, the 2016 RNC had been averaging 22 million viewers across eight ad-supported networks. That number is off a little, given the 1 million or so watching on PBS and a few other nets each night, but pretty accurate. And tracking down from 2008.
Not so sure about that. Half of those watching Hellary’s speech next week are going to be there to see her head spin around like a top. She could set viewing records.
I watched on DirecTV...wonder if they counted that?
Even the call in's after the convention show were good!
I can assure you folks,that Trumps speech drew more the 50,000,000 viewers and listeners on TV & radio. add to those numbers FBN, Bloomberg, BBC America, OAN, Netflex, and hundreds of “Live Stream” phone and IPad voewers!!! The media especially, “Hollywood Reporter, Deadline Hollywood, “Nielson Ratings” is one and the same with Oabama & Clinton, the lies tellers of all time!!! Trump hit a grand slam homerun some 560 ft.
When the final “real” numbers of Trump speech viewers emerges....you will all be amazed at the record numbers of viewers Trump attracted, who stayed tuned to the entire speech!!
Being in July doesn’t help either. People are in the heart of summer activities, travel etc. mccain’s was in September if I remember right. I think the technology change is the bigger driver.
-PJ
McCain drew more viewers because Sarah Palin was on the ticket. Absolutely.
“Falls Far Short of McCain” ... really?
The viewers of the 2008 McAmnesty speech were not watching to see Juan ... they were waiting to see Sarah !!
Falls Far Short of McCain..
I remember that speech.
I tuned in to watch Sara Palin not McCain.
Falls Far Short of McCain/ Palin.....
I watched the whole thing on CSPAN...no commercials, no talking-head commentary.
Keeping it real. It’s amazing what you hear when there’s no “anchor” translating English, into English, of everything that is said.
By watching this way, you immediately pick up the lies as reported later by the MSM.
Hollywood Reporter’s point is Trump lacks the curiousity and enthusiasm that McCain had.
Well that’s ok, Donald Trump is going to be our next President, and John Insane McCain is going to be looking forward to Green Jello Day in whatever nursing home he retires to after Kelli Ward kicks his geriatric ass down the road.
I turned off the TV because of all the distracting crap at the bottom and the interruptions by the commentators and went to the live feed on the internet.
This is EXACTLY what is NOT being considered, live streaming now is HUGE not so much when McShame was running!!!
Since they didn’t count C span which at least cut out the crapola commentary numbers are probably off some.
I personally don’t care about tv ratings
Exactly. More and more households have cut the cord with cable TV. Why subscribe?
Exactly, Palin was the star, not McDemocrat!
By excluding PBS this cycle, they missed 2.75 million people.
I don’t know the CSPAN numbers, but they would be significant. Plus, there are a number of people watching on the internet or the RNC cable feed, which is not mentioned.
It’s at least 35 million right now, if not more.
We had PBS on mute, but watched on YouTube. The bias was obvious when you had the RNC feed and compared it to what PBS wanted us to see.
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