1st debate TV ratings

[cinyc]

No, the 80 million is supposed to be people, not households. 

To be fair, I only meant 'households' as in the way they determine those statistics. They mean people, but the way they count it for most of that is by household, right? For instance, for each cable customer who uses their TV to tune in to some network to watch, they count that as 1 person, even though they could have a whole family watching with them. There is really no way for the companies to know how many people are actually watching. The viewers over the internet could probably be more accurately assumed to be 1 person, but still.

Anywho, given how media is consumed, we'll probably never know how many people truly watched last night. It could be considerably higher when factoring in groups/families, no?

Yes, Nielsen does know who is watching in a household - at least in theory.  Family members are supposed to check in on the electronic people meter (or whatever technology Nielsen is using these days) when they start watching a program, and check out when they stop.  I don't know whether Nielsen has automated the process with new technology like they use for video games that allows boxes to tell how many people are in the room yet.

Nielsen provides both household and individual ratings.

[cinyc]

There's no press release from Nielsen yet, but the final broadcast network adjusted figures are in, and various media outlets are reporting an audience of 81.4 million.  My guess is that figure doesn't include PBS (but the Nielsen press release likely will).

[Virginiá]

Just wanted to post this - Vox made a graphic showing the percentage of the voting-age population that tuned in, going back to 1976:




I was off by 2%, but what I said still stands: It wasn't remarkable in terms of the share of adults, only that because of population growth, it's a record as we now have many more people then in 1980.

However, it was the most watched debate since 1992 in terms of share of the adult pop., so that isn't nothing.

[Mr. Morden]

Just wanted to post this - Vox made a graphic showing the percentage of the voting-age population that tuned in, going back to 1976:

My takeaway from this graph is that the internet taking off in 1995 killed debate ratings, since people suddenly had alternative entertainment options beyond just watching TV. 

[Mr. Morden]

From skimming that Vox article:

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/27/13074594/trump-clinton-debate-ratings-historic-disappointing

it sounds like they also forgot that some of the debate viewers were kids.  81 million people might have watched, but you have to subtract away those who are under 18 if you want to then divide by the number of adults to get the percentage of adults who watched.

[Figueira]

In 2012 my whole family watched the debate together on Youtube.

[cinyc]

Nielsen's press release is out.  84,011,000 viewers watched the debate on TV, including PBS.

[Dr. Arch]

Nielsen's press release is out.  84,011,000 viewers watched the debate on TV, including PBS.

Nearly 100m people saw Trump's disastrous performance, great!

[cinyc]

Nielsen's press release is out.  84,011,000 viewers watched the debate on TV, including PBS.

Nearly 100m people saw Trump's disastrous performance, great!

84 million << 100 million.  The media expectations of 100 million TV viewers were wildly exaggerated.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Nielsen's press release is out.  84,011,000 viewers watched the debate on TV, including PBS.

Nearly 100m people saw Trump's disastrous performance, great!

84 million << 100 million.  The media expectations of 100 million TV viewers were wildly exaggerated.

I think if you included streamers and people dvr-ing and watching it later, you'll hit 95-100 million, just not 100 million live TV watcher.

[cinyc]

Nielsen's press release is out.  84,011,000 viewers watched the debate on TV, including PBS.

Nearly 100m people saw Trump's disastrous performance, great!

84 million << 100 million.  The media expectations of 100 million TV viewers were wildly exaggerated.

I think if you included streamers and people dvr-ing and watching it later, you'll hit 95-100 million, just not 100 million live TV watcher.

I doubt it.  YouTube only had 2.5 million live streamers, which covered many of the network broadcasts.  And very few people dvr live TV like political debates.  Maybe you reach 90 million after streaming and dvring.  I doubt you'll reach 100 million.  While Nielsen does measure dvr-delayed TV watching, it doesn't measure streaming.

Plus, the media was expecting 100 million TV viewers, not including streaming, anyway.  The debate ratings didn't come close.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Nielsen's press release is out.  84,011,000 viewers watched the debate on TV, including PBS.

Nearly 100m people saw Trump's disastrous performance, great!

84 million << 100 million.  The media expectations of 100 million TV viewers were wildly exaggerated.

I think if you included streamers and people dvr-ing and watching it later, you'll hit 95-100 million, just not 100 million live TV watcher.

I doubt it.  YouTube only had 2.5 million live streamers, which covered many of the network broadcasts.  And very few people dvr live TV like political debates.  Maybe you reach 90 million after streaming and dvring.  I doubt you'll reach 100 million.  While Nielsen does measure dvr-delayed TV watching, it doesn't measure streaming.

Plus, the media was expecting 100 million TV viewers, not including streaming, anyway.  The debate ratings didn't come close.

K, and your point?

It's still the most watched debate in over twenty years ...

[Seriously?]

K, and your point?

It's still the most watched debate in over twenty years ...

Yup. Because of Donald J. Trump. If this was Hillary Clinton vs. Ted Cruz, the numbers aren't nearly as big. Not even close.

[Suburbia]

Good. When more people watch debates, it shows that people are getting informed in American politics. Let's see if the Kaine vs. Pence VP debate gets that ratings (probably not), and the next 2 debates.

[cinyc]

K, and your point?

It's still the most watched debate in over twenty years ...

My point is although it is the most watched debate EVER (not just in over 20 years) in terms of total viewers, the media hype of it getting 100 million TV viewers was greatly overblown. 

I also put up a poll yesterday for Atlas users to predict the TV viewership.  ElectionsGuy came closest by guessing 85 million.  I was second at 82 million.  The most common chosen range was 80-90 million, although the median and mean were higher than the mode.

[Virginiá]

I think if you included streamers and people dvr-ing and watching it later, you'll hit 95-100 million, just not 100 million live TV watcher.

I can't put a number on it, but personally I think when all is said and done, a decent bit more people than we think will have seen at least most of the debate.

Now think about this - imagine how many people didn't watch the debate, but have seen all the worst clips of Trump putting his foot in his mouth or generally being offensive? It's been getting a lot of play today. I cycled throughout cable news while I worked this afternoon and it is just non-stop.

This was the absolute worst time for Snifflin' Trump to come unhinged

[now queue new wiki leaks dump]

[Sorenroy]

Anyone know what kind of international audience this thing got (personal anecdotes are fine)?

Also, if anyone can find that, what were the numbers in the past?

[cinyc]

Anyone know what kind of international audience this thing got (personal anecdotes are fine)?

I don't know. Probably very low.  The Canadian broadcast networks didn't air it last night, and I can't imagine the ratings are very high in Europe for a debate that started at 3AM CET. 

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http://www.thewrap.com/trump-clinton-presidential-debate-tv-ratings-history/

[Tender Branson]

Not bad.

This is similar to the Austrian presidential debate ratings (1.4 million watched it on their TVs and 0.64 million online on the ORF's TV Thek).