According to preliminary overnight ratings, FOX drew the most viewers of the big four broadcast networks for Pres. Barack Obama‘s State of the Union address.
FOX had a dominant lead-in from “American Idol” with 24.75 million viewers at 8pm. The combined viewership of the reruns on ABC, CBS and NBC at 8pm was 14.82 million viewers.
Fox News’ Shepard Smith anchored the coverage for FOX.
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TVbytheNumbers has more info, but here are the early total viewer numbers for the broadcast networks. We’ll have cable numbers this afternoon.
| Network | 9pm-10pm | 10pm-10:30pm |
|---|---|---|
| FOX | 9.74M | 8.71M |
| ABC | 7.64M | 7.18M |
| NBC | 7.15M | 7.23M |
| CBS | 6.16M | 6.10M |
Between 9-10:30pm, Obama’s address drew 30.2 million total viewers across the big four broadcast networks, according to the overnights That’s down roughly 3 million viewers from last February’s address.