What a difference eight years (and one political party change) makes.
On Feb. 24, 2009, Fox News Channel (FNC) nabbed exactly 5 million total viewers with its coverage of President Obama’s first congressional address. Last night, the cable news channel scored 10.765 million overall audience members from Trump’s turn.
That’s a difference of +115.3 percent. Yeah, that’s large.
Somewhat predictably, the more left-leaning cable news networks dipped from ’09’s version — especially CNN.
From 9:15 p.m. ET to 10:15 p.m. ET last night — the hour of the actual speech — CNN slipped 21.5 percent versus 2009 to 3.944 million total viewers. A steadier MSNBC slid just 3.2 percent to 2.683 million.
FNC also dominated cable news’ key 25-54 demographic on Tuesday, putting up 2.784 million adults of that age range to CNN’s 1.517 million and MSNBC’s 669,000 viewers.
Over on broadcast, NBC reigned supreme for the speech — though the Peacock network still placed behind Fox News overall with 9.144 million total viewers.
Trump’s address on NBC had the benefit of a strong lead-in, with coverage of the talk beginning immediately after Tuesday’s “Voice” season premiere.
CBS was second on the dial, with 7.156 million total viewers on average during that aforementioned 60 specific minutes. ABC was third with 6.065 million, Fox was fourth with 3.076 million. The CW did not carry the speech nationally.