Posted on 10/16/2020 3:40:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Instead of a debate, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden participated in dueling town halls on Thursday night and early ratings indicate the former vice president had a larger audience.
The two presidential candidates were originally scheduled to have their second debate, but concerns about a new coronavirus moved the event to a virtual format. After Trump refused to participate if it wasn't in person, Biden opted for a town hall moderated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos. On Wednesday, NBC announced Savannah Guthrie would moderate a town hall with Trump.
Having separate town halls taking place at the same time came under fire as critics said voters were forced to choose which one to watch in real time. With up to 95 percent of people already decided on who they're voting for, the majority of viewers watching likely picked the candidate they support—although former Today co-host Katie Couric speculated that some might tune into Trump's town hall given his unpredictability.
Nielsen ratings confirmed what people watching YouTube viewership counts already knew: more people tuned in to see what Biden had to say than Trump. ABC News' YouTube stream of Biden's town hall had a million more viewers than NBC News' live stream of Trump's.
In a head-to-head matchup between NBC and ABC, Biden had nearly four million more viewers, according to Nielsen. Although Trump took the lead in YouTube views when factoring in the CNBC live stream, MSNBC and CNBC television viewers weren't enough to edge Biden out of the top spot, according to preliminary data.
Adding the 671,000 CNBC and 1,740,000 MSNBC viewers to the 10,655,000 people that watched on NBC, a total of about 13.07 million people watched Trump's town hall, according to Nielsen Fast Nationals. Biden had 13.9 million viewers on ABC alone,
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I watched latter part of Trump’s “town hall” on NewsMaxTV. I don’t suppose that channel gets figured in to the MSM ratings.
Yeah. He know his name.
Several NBC stations on the West Coast including major ones in LA did not air the Trump town hall live. Yesterday the ABC stations in the same markets aired Biden live.
People will tune into Biden like rubbernecks, they always have to slow down to look at the disastrous events...People go out of their way to see the fire, or a plane crash...Same thing with Biden.
Rush discussed this today. He said he was being emailed and texted by a great many people asking him what happened to the Trump Townhall?
They had tuned in to NBC in their market and it was not being broadcast. Turns out that NBC allowed local markets to decide whether to broadcast the Townhall or not. Many local markets chose not to.
ABC gave no such option to any of its affiliates.
Exactly my experience
Let’s see. Biden rallies draw tens of peoples; Trump rallies draw tens of thousands of people. So call me skeptical.
Everyone you watched Trump for a full hour and then tuned in to the last half hour of Biden got counted as a Biden viewer.
Wasn’t Biden’s townhall longer?
I don’t get those channels. I couldn’t find it on Right Sise Broadcasting.
Who could watch much of that hit job by SG? Smh
I call BS. ABC is invested in Biden winning.......and ABC is the only one that is giving their viewers.
One question: were Trump’s number disclosed before ABC gave their numbers?
This was early Nielsen data. Data now released shows Trump garnered about a million more views.
I really hope Guthrie’s ratings tanks, She deserves it.
It’s Newsweak, consider the source.
Yawn. Who cares?
I would think a lot of people tuned in the Biden townhall out of curiosity over whether he would actually be asked about the biggest story of the day, his family’s immense corruption and influence peddling. Of course, he was not.
100% on the Burisma questions...nothing from nothing leaves nothing...
Lol, that’s why more people were watching Biden - they were waiting for that very question. Too bad, should’ve known it would never come up.
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