48 million viewers tuned in to President Barack Obama‘s State of the Union address last evening across the broadcast and cable networks, according to Nielsen.
While that is a decrease of roughly 5 and a half million viewers from the address he delivered to a joint session of Congress last February, it’s the most viewers the president has drawn for any primetime address since that time.
Here’s a chart, based on info from Nielsen, comparing the audiences for Obama’s primetime addresses and news conferences since taking office: