That’s about 10 million fewer viewers than Trump had for his 2018 State of the Union address. The Nielsen company said Wednesday it was similar to President Obama’s 2014 presidential address on fighting the Islamic state, which was seen by 34 million people.
In preliminary numbers, the quarter hour (9-9:15 p.m.) containing the president’s speech drew a combined 28.1 household rating in metered markets on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, Fox News and NBC. The following 15 minutes, including analysis and the Nancy Pelosi-Chuck Schumer rebuttal, averaged 29.3 across those same networks, a bump of about 4 percent.
There was some internal debate at networks about whether to grant Trump the TV time for Tuesday’s speech, but 11 separate networks aired it.
Fox News Channel with 8.044 million viewers and CBS with 8.043 million were in a virtual dead heat as the top destination. NBC was third with 7 million, followed by ABC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox broadcasting.
