When history was made with the highest number of viewers for a presidential primary debate back in August, the surprise was genuine but it was written off as what happens when news and entertainment tangle and we get TV personalities like Donald Trump running for president.
Media analysts told New York Times:
“You also have colorful characters like Chris Christie, but Trump has literally taken this to an unprecedented level of interest.”
“It isn’t just curiosity about Trump,” Mr. Heyward continued. “He drove awareness. Normally a Republican debate wouldn’t even be on the radar for a lot of people but you couldn’t miss the buildup to this. Trump has been on the trail and mixing it up with the other candidates at a distance but people couldn’t resist the opportunity to see them all on the same stage.”
Last month when the GOP debate made company history as the most-watched program on CNN, Trump took the credit.
And while both CNN and Trump believed the Democratic debates would not get the viewership of the GOP debates without the promise of Trumpisms, the viewership set another record. Tuesday night’s Las Vegas debate was the highest-viewed Democratic debate in history.
The first debate, at 23.9 million viewers, making it the highest-rated non-sports cable telecast of all time and the ninth most viewed event in cable history, could have been written off as a fluke of Trump attention. After all, it is beating last election cycle’s first GOP debate by more than 20 million. Trump may not have received flowers for the second GOP debate with 23.1 million views, 921,000 of whom were live streaming, but he did receive the credit from CNN.
The ratings show that these GOP debates are drawing viewers who’ve never bothered turning on a debate before — largely due to Trump’s presence.
But this latest debate, at 15.3 million viewers, though eight and a half million behind the GOP first debate, is far above expected. And well ahead of the biggest primary debate audience before this race cycle. That would be the Clinton vs. Obama head-to-head in March of 2008 with 10.7 million viewers. Trump may try to claim responsibility for this success because of his live tweeting during the event.
But with every new political debate breaking records this year, with or without Trump’s presence, another explanation should be considered.
These cable numbers are breaking records but the most watched debate is still the 1980s October 28 debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. For the first and only debate between the two, 45.8 million TV’s tuned in.
Is it really so shocking that half as many Americans are politically engaged during the primaries as the number of Americans the week before elections in 1980? That idea does fly in the face of the perception that today’s generation is not politically attentive, but the other record the Democratic debate broke was the number of viewers streaming online with 980,000 concurrent live streams. The first GOP debate caused even more surprise than it’s overall viewership record with the 7.9 million from the 25-54 demographic. Clearly politics, even this far out from the presidential elections, is not just for Americans over 50 or to hear Trump’s next dis.
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