You are reading an exclusive WrapPRO article for free. Want to level up your entertainment career? Go here for more information.
The final night of the Republican National Convention drew 25.38 million viewers, according to the latest ratings from Nielsen.
That’s a 6% increase from 2020’s numbers, where the final evening drew 23.8 million viewers. The 2024 event took place across four nights and aired on 14 television networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Scripps News, Telemundo, Univision, CNN, CNNe, FOX Business, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation and PBS.
The final night of the RNC peaked with a 96-minute speech from former President Donald Trump, in which he officially accepted the GOP nomination. Unsurprisingly, that portion of the program was the most-watched of the entire week, with the audience peaking during the 10:45 – 11:00 p.m. window at 28.4 million viewers.
RNC Night 1 Draws 18.13 Million Viewers
Fox News saw the highest ratings of the evening by far, but especially when it came to cable. From 10 p.m. to 12:20 a.m., the cable news network saw 9.2 million viewers using the P2+ metric (viewers aged 2 years or older). Additionally, Fox averaged 1.8 million in the key demo of viewers between the ages of 25-54 and broke records in the 10 p.m. hour, averaging 11 million viewers across Fox News and Fox Business. This was the highest-rated convention coverage for the network since 1992. During that same 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. time period, CNN saw an average of 1.97 million total viewers, while MSNBC saw 1.19 million viewers.
As for broadcast, NBC was the big winner over the full four-night event, both in terms of total viewers and the key demo of 25-54. On the final evening, NBC News averaged 3.7 million in total viewership, making the event the highest-rated RNC for the network since 2016. The network also averaged 834,000 viewers in the key demo.
Over the four nights, NBC News averaged 2.94 million total viewers, followed by ABC (2.28 million viewers) and CBS (1.74 million viewers).
As high as the total viewership for night four may have been, that 25.38 million number is roughly half of the viewership that was seen during the first presidential debate earlier this year. That CNN-hosted event was watched by 51.3 million people, according to Nielsen, and aired on 16 different networks.
The RNC is always a big deal during any election year, but it was an especially momentous one this time around. On Monday, the event started off with Trump declaring J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and junior Ohio senator, as his running mate. The GOP then heard from Vance for the first time on Thursday night. The fact that the assassination attempt on Trump’s life happened last Saturday — two days prior to the start of the RNC — also altered the tone of the event.
Though the RNC has come to an end, the DNC is on the horizon. The Democratic event is scheduled to take place from Aug. 19-22 in Chicago.
