More than 25M watched Trump's RNC speech
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Viewership for this year's Republican National Convention (RNC) averaged around 19 million viewers across all four nights, up slightly from 2020 but down around 22% from 2016, according to figures from Nielsen.
Yes, but: Former President Trump's Thursday speech, his first public remarks since the assassination attempt against him Saturday, drew more eyeballs than his 2020 RNC speech, but far fewer than his 2016 remarks.
By the numbers: More than 25 million people tuned in live to the final night of the RNC across 14 cable and broadcast networks, the highest number of viewers across the four nights of the convention.
- Viewership on Thursday peaked at 28.4 million from 10:45 - 11:00pm ET, Nielsen said. That's when Trump recounted the assassination attempt against him Saturday evening from his point of view.
- Eyeballs tapered on later in the evening, as Trump's speech — the longest televised presidential acceptance speech in U.S. history — dragged on.
Zoom in: Fox News drew the most viewers across all major cable and broadcast news channels all four nights.
- On Thursday, it set a new record for the most number of viewers for a single cable channel during a convention, with 10.4 million people watching the network during the 10:00 p.m. ET hour.
- During that same hour, Fox News' cable competitors drew far fewer viewers, with CNN and MSNBC drawing roughly 2 million and 1.2 million viewers, respectively.
The big picture: The vast majority of viewers across all four nights, on average, were over 55 years old.
- While Nielsen includes data in its tally from those streaming the event on live TV, it does not include viewership data from those who may have watched the program on smaller devices or that tuned in via clips on social media.
What's next: The Democratic National Convention (DNC) will take place from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22 in Chicago.
