By The Independent (World News) | Created at 2024-10-02 20:23:25 | Updated at 2024-10-02 22:37:53
2 hours ago
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Just under 39 million people tuned in across eight networks to watch Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz, falling 20 million people short of the audience numbers when Vice President Kamala Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence debated in 2020.
Early figures from Nielsen, Fox, and MSNBC showed that CBS — which hosted the debate — averaged 9.14 million viewers, Fox News averaged 7.69 million, ABC News averaged 6.1 million, NBC averaged 5.44 million, MSNBC averaged 4.65 million, CNN averaged 3.18 million, Fox Broadcasting averaged 2.42 million, and Fox Business averaged 255,000, Deadline reports.
In 2020, the vice presidential debate averaged approximately 51 million in early numbers across the same networks. The final numbers showed that 59 million watched the debate, making it the most watched vice presidential face-off since they began in 1976.
Nielsen is expected to provide more detailed numbers later on Wednesday.
The vice presidential debate also drew significantly fewer viewers than this year’s presidential debate between Harris and Donald Trump, which saw 67.14 million viewers across 17 networks tune in last month.
