Virtual DNC Telecast Earns 19.75 Million Viewers, Down 20% From 2016
- by Wayne Friedman , August 18, 2020
The first night of the virtual Democratic National Convention pulled in 19.75 million Nielsen-measured TV viewers across ten TV networks -- down 20% from four years ago.
Ten networks aired the event -- ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, CNN en Español, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and Newsy -- in which the Democrats on Day Two of the convention nominated former Vice President Joe Biden as their Presidential candidate. The event ran from 10 p.m. to 11:15 p.m.
MSNBC posted the best results for the TV convention event, with 5.2 million total viewers. CNN was next at 4.8 million, followed by ABC with 4.4 million, Fox at 2.0 million and CBS with 1.98 million.
For the broader three-hour prime-time period, (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) MSNBC had 4.34 million viewers, followed by CNN with 4.1 million and Fox News Channel at 3.4 million.
People 55 years and older numbered 14.1 million -- down 8% from four years ago, while 35- to-54-year olds came in at 4.0 million -- off 43% -- and 18- to-34-year-olds came in at 1.1 million, dropping 54% from 2016.
Four years ago, when the Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton, seven networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC -- posted a collective 25.95 million Nielsen-measured viewers.
Will be interested to learn what the streaming audience was.
Sadly, streaming is not reported as 'audience' (i.e. average minute audience which is the gold standard). What you will probably get is a mash of stream starts or search requests with a <1-second threshold (which, unlike TV ratings) you can't accumulate.