TV Scores: Republican Main Debate Down, Nonetheless Leads Primetime

The second debate of the Republican presidential main didn’t draw fairly as massive an viewers as the primary.

Wednesday’s occasion on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library drew a mixed 9.5 million viewers throughout Fox Information, Fox Enterprise, Univision and Fox digital platforms. That’s down about 27 p.c from the 13 million who watched the primary main debate on Aug. 23.

Fox Information had the biggest portion of the viewers with 6.69 million viewers, whereas Fox Enterprise introduced in 1.82 million — its most watched telecast since 2016 — and Univision had 813,000. Streaming accounted for the remaining 200,000 viewers, much like the primary debate.

Throughout all three linear channels, the two-hour debate averaged 1.89 million viewers in the important thing information demographic of adults 25-54.

As was the case in August, the present front-runner for the Republican nomination, former president Donald Trump, didn’t take part within the debate. Seven different candidates did participate (and took just a few pictures at Trump for not attending).

The controversy drew the biggest primetime viewers on all of linear TV Wednesday, outpacing the season finale of America’s Bought Expertise on NBC (5.36 million viewers) and the season premiere of Survivor on CBS (5.24 million).

The primary two Republican main debates have averaged 11.25 million viewers throughout all platforms — rather less than half the full via the primary two debates of the 2016 GOP main (23.5 million), the final time there was a giant discipline of candidates for the celebration. Within the 2020 marketing campaign cycle, the primary two Democratic main debates averaged 13.2 million TV viewers (over 4 nights, as the massive discipline of candidates was cut up in two every time).