UPDATE: Management of the Home of Representatives continues to be unknown, however the last viewership numbers are in for final night time’s election, and it ain’t a winner.
Throughout 18 networks, Donald Trump‘s sweeping victory for a return to the White Home he was kicked out of 4 years in the past was watched by an viewers of 42.3 million, in accordance with Nielsen. The measurement was within the 7 p.m. – 11 p.m. ET interval, which was hours earlier than the ultimate tally of Trump’s win and Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss was in.
The 42 million and alter is a powerful end in right now’s decentralized media surroundings, by any non-Tremendous Bowl customary. Nevertheless, as a sign of what and the place Individuals are getting their information, that primetime viewership was really down a tough 25% from the 2020 election that noticed Joe Biden defeat Trump.
The shops that Nielsen used for its 2024 rankings metric had been ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW, Benefit Avenue Media, Scripps Information, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, FOX Information Channel, FOX Enterprise Community, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation, and PBS. Not a part of the linear gang, Amazon Prime Video’s Brian Williams hosted election particular was not among the many reduce.
As at all times, the majority of the viewers had been older. These 55 and up made up 24.4 million of the 42.3 million who watched the election outcomes are available.
PREVIOUSLY, 11:20 AM: Fox Information Channel led the pack in primetime election protection Tuesday night time with 9.8M tuning in from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, in accordance with early knowledge from Nielsen.
Nevertheless, it is a sharp lower from the viewers FNC drew in 2020, when practically 14M watched, which appears to be the story throughout the board, as all linear TV channels struggled to seize as giant of an viewers as they did 4 years in the past.
Nielsen hasn’t launched its last numbers, which is able to element simply what number of U.S. viewers watched Election Night time protection throughout practically two dozen linear networks. These numbers are based mostly on early, in-home viewing knowledge and are more likely to go up throughout the board when Nielsen’s last numbers, which take out-of-home viewing into consideration, can be found later Wednesday. This publish shall be up to date when that knowledge is accessible.
Following Fox Information, it was a tug of battle between broadcast and cable, as ABC was the No. 1 broadcaster of the night time with about 5.6M viewers in primetime. It was the primary time in 16 years that ABC not solely led broadcast in complete viewers, but in addition amongst each adults 18-49 (1.8M) and 25-54 (2.2M).
In the meantime, MSNBC drew 5.5M viewers, topping CNN on a presidential election night time for the primary time in community historical past. However whereas they had been the cable winner of the night time, MSNBC was nonetheless down versus 2020’s 7.3M viewers.
CNN was considerably down in linear viewership from 2020, primarily halving its viewers with simply 4.7M viewers, in comparison with 9.6M 4 years in the past. It was CNN’s smallest Election Night time viewers since 1996.
CNN did have a digital and streaming element throughout CNN.com and Max to election protection, which might not be accounted for right here.
Throughout the rest of broadcast, NBC drew 5.3M complete viewers in primetime, and CBS bought 3.4M. Fox was final with 2.1M — all main decreases from 2020 as effectively.
As talked about, this knowledge additionally doesn’t issue streaming into the equation, and lots of the networks had digital parts this election cycle. Deadline can even replace this publish with any inner numbers which can be launched, although they can’t be as straight in comparison with each other since they don’t seem to be independently verifiable.
