For what will likely be the final debate of the GOP primary season, CNN drew 4.7 million Total Viewers and 1.4 million A25-54 viewers for last night’s Arizona face-off. This makes it the least watched debate since CNN’s Nov. 22 contest which drew 3.6 million Total Viewers. These are Nielsen Fast Nationals. Final numbers will be in after 4pmET when we’ll also have the updated debate ranker which will show ABC’s debate on Dec. 10 as the most watched in Total Viewers (7.6 million) and NBC’s debate on Jan. 23 as the most watched with younger viewers (2.9 million). Fox News’s debate on Dec. 15 will be the most-watched on cable with 6.7 million Total Viewers and 1.9 million younger viewers.
With the debate, CNN won the 8-10pmET time period among the cable news channels. CNN topped FNC by 173% (4.7m vs. 1.7m) and MSNBC by 464% (4.7m vs. 839k).
During the re-air of the debate on the West Coast (8-10pmPT) CNN drew an additional 941k Total Viewers and 434k A25-54 viewers.