• by Wayne Friedman , March 2, 2022

President Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday posted a Nielsen-measured 38.2 million viewers -- the highest viewing for an address to a joint session of Congress by a President in three years.

President Trump's February 2020 State of the Union address was seen on 12 networks, totaling 37.2 million viewers. Biden's speech aired on 16 TV networks.

Nielsen notes that viewing totals for this year's address included both out-of-home and connected TV viewing. 

Although Nielsen did not reveal the viewer contributions from each of those viewing platforms, it said CTV viewing can be as much as 13% for televised political event programming.

Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address earned 46.8 million viewers, also from 12 networks. Trump’s best result was in 2017, when the speech officially called "Address to the Joint Sessions of Congress” on February 28 posted 47.7 million viewers.

Viewing for Biden's State of Union address this week was higher than last year’s total of 26.9 million on April 28, 2021, also officially called "Address to the Joint Sessions of Congress."

President Obama’s first "Address to the Joint Sessions of Congress” on February 24, 2009 took in 52.4 million viewers from 10 networks.