According to Nielsen Fast National data, 47.9 million viewers watched Thursday night’s historic CNN Presidential Debate featuring President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Despite allowing the debate to be simulcast, CNN still recorded large viewership numbers with 9.04 million total viewers across CNN, CNN en Espanol and HLN. That makes the debate the network’s highest-rated program ever.
CNN itself drew 8.747 million total viewers, a number that placed it behind Fox News, which led all networks with 8.815 million viewers. In the advertiser-prized Adults 25-54 demo, CNN was on top with 3.013 million viewers.
The network also says it had more than 30 million live starts on its digital platforms and YouTube.
Despite scoring bigger numbers compared to some previous debates, the CNN Presidential Debate actually trails the 2020 match-ups between Biden and Trump. Their first debate that election cycle had 73.1 million viewers, while 62.9 million viewers tuned in for the second debate.
But the first 2024 debate did eclipse the 1996 debates between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, s well as the 2000 debates between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Not high viewership by recent historical standards (table put together by Pew) https://t.co/qkyxOeGTZZ pic.twitter.com/Dcmu0ntWLM
— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) June 28, 2024
CNN Presidential Debate numbers are below.
Total Viewers
FNC: 8,815,000
CNN: 8,747,000
ABC: 8,696,000
NBC: 5,170,000
CBS: 4,812,000
MSNBC: 3,935,000
Fox: 3,481,000
FBN: 372,000
Adults 25-54
CNN: 3,013,000
ABC: 2,238,000
FNC: 1,607,000
NBC: 1,443,000
CBS: 1,301,000
Fox: 1,399,000
MSNBC: 566,000
FBN: 74,000