https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/biden-trump-first-2024-debate-
tv-ratings-1235934892/

TV Ratings: Biden-Trump Debate Draws 51M Viewers, Way Below 2020

The CNN-produced program was the earliest of any presidential election
cycle since debates began being televised.

The first debate face-off (of the 2024 election cycle, at least) between
President Joe Biden and Republican challenger Donald Trump drew a big
audience � but not nearly as big as their 2020 debates.

The 99-minute debate, produced by CNN but aired on 16 other networks,
averaged 51.27 million viewers, according to final same-day ratings from
Nielsen. That�s down by 30 percent from the candidates� first debate in
2020, which drew 73.13 million viewers. (Thursday�s Nielsen-measured
audience doesn�t include streaming.)

The debate, which most commentators said went poorly for Biden (with a few
caveats), is the earliest general-election forum since televised debates
debuted in 1960, taking place even before the two major party conventions.
It was also the first general-election debate since 1988 that wasn�t
organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

CNN drew 9.53 million viewers, better than its performance for either
Biden-Trump debate in 2020, and narrowly beat Fox News (9.28 million
viewers) and ABC (9.21 million) for the lead among individual outlets.
Including simulcasts on Fox broadcast network (3.68 million viewers) and
Fox Business (397,000), the Fox feed accounted for about 13.4 million TV
viewers, the most for any media company ahead of NBCUniversal (5.39 million
on NBC, 4.12 million on MSNBC and about 900,000 on Telemundo) and Warner
Bros. Discovery, which got about 300,000 additional viewers on HLN and
CNNe. CBS averaged 5.01 million viewers; the remaining 3.45 million or so
viewers watched on Scripps News, Univision, BET, Newsmax, NewsNation and
PBS.

CNN also says an additional 2.36 million viewers saw the debate on its
digital platforms, including 864,000 on Max (whose figure includes 21
minutes of post-debate coverage). Thursday was the biggest day ever for CNN
on Max.

Prior to Thursday, the first general-election debates of an election cycle
averaged about 63.8 million viewers each (excluding 1980, for which figures
aren�t available). Only two, in 1996 (46.1 million viewers) and 2000 (46.6
million), have come in under 50 million viewers.