VP Debate Nets 37 Million Nielsen Viewers

Against record-setting TV viewing for the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump a week ago, the Vice Presidential debate on Monday went in the opposite direction -- posting the weakest results since 2000. 

The debate between Democratic contender Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence pulled in a Nielsen 37.4 million viewers, tuned into across four broadcast networks and four cable networks. That's the lowest number since the VP debate in 2000. 

NBC tallied the best viewing numbers: 7.03 million. CBS was next at 6.46 million; followed by ABC at 6.15 million; Fox News Channel, 6.08 million; CNN, 4.17 million; MSNBC, 3.13 million; Fox, 2.21 million; and Fox Business Network, 392,000.

A week ago, the first presidential debate pulled in 84 million Nielsen viewers -- now the all-time TV debate record.

The best ratings ever for a Vice Presidential debate were in 2008 between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, pulling in 69.9 million viewers.

The all-time lowest viewing results for a VP debate -- Jack Kemp and Al Gore in 1996 -- earned 26.6 million viewers.

advertisement

advertisement

1 comment about "VP Debate Nets 37 Million Nielsen Viewers".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, October 6, 2016 at 11:23 a.m.

    Wayne, "ratings" are percentages of a universe; the number of estimated viewers, expressed in millions, is not a rating, it's an audience projection. In the early 1950s, TV shows like "I love Lucy", Dragnet", "The $64,000 Question" and many others drew average minute set usage ratings as high as 50-65%, yet, in terms of the number of viewers, they wouldn't rate among TV's top 50 these days ----because the population has tripled since the 1950s. So it's not "the most viewed" or "less viewed" telecast but, rather, it drew more or less viewers.

Next story loading loading..