Joe Biden may have scored his first victory: The Democratic presidential nominee drew 1 million more cable-news viewers for his acceptance speech last week than President Donald Trump for his address on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday.
According to early Nielsen Media Research ratings, about 14.67 million watched CNN, MSNBC and Fox News as former vice president Joe Biden addressed the nation during the final night of the DNC last week in the 10 p.m. ET hour. Across those same three networks from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday night, an average 13.48 million tuned into see Trump.
For the fourth night in a row, Fox News won total viewership numbers for the Republican National Convention while CNN maintained a second-place finish in total average viewers and viewers in the advertiser-coveted age demographic of 25 to 54.
Fox News had 9.418 million total average viewers from 10 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET, the hour all three cable news networks took the full event life. Of those viewers, 2.217 million were in the key demo. CNN was next, bringing in 2.254 million total average viewers and 753,000 demo viewers.
In last place was MSNBC, which was in first place for total average viewers every day of last week’s Democratic National Convention. This week, the channel grabbed 1.810 million average total viewers for the fourth day of the RNC, of whom 383,000 were 25 to 54.
During the fourth night of the RNC in 2016’s election cycle, Fox News brought in slightly more than this year during the 10 p.m. hour: It had 9.737 million total average viewers and 2.586 million demo viewers. CNN brought in less than 2016, when it had 5.814 million total average viewers, of whom 2.014 were key demo-aged.
In 2016, MSNBC brought in 3.059 million total average viewers on the fourth night of the RNC. Of those, 975,000 were 25 to 54.