The viewership numbers for the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 election cycle are in, and considering the absence of former President Donald Trump and the linear TV market being smaller than ever—Fox News Media and the Republican National Committee will likely be satisfied with the findings.
Per live plus same day data from Nielsen, more than 11.09 million total viewers ended up watching last night’s debate co-moderated by Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier on Fox News Channel. Tack on the 1.7 million who watched on Fox Business Network and non-linear/streaming figures, and you have a total of 12.8 million consuming the two-hour broadcast across linear and streaming.
The Fox News Republican Primary Debate (9-11 p.m. ET) was not only the most-watched telecast on all of U.S. TV yesterday, it was the most-watched non-sports telecast of 2023 to-date.
Out of the 12.8 million watching the debate across Fox News and FBN, 2.82 million hailed from the Adults 25-54 demo–the demo TV news advertisers covet.
TVNewser predicted yesterday that the first Fox News GOP 2024 debate would draw between eight and 10 million total linear viewers across Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. Apparently, we underestimated a bit!
We also estimate the Trump absence likely cost Fox News Media five million total linear viewers at the very least, including the less-frequent news consumers who’d be more interested in seeing a Trump spectacle over a Trump-less debate.
Fox News still holds the presidential primary debate viewership record: 24 million watched the Republicans battle it out in Aug. 2015. The first GOP debate of the 2016 election cycle, starring then reality TV show host Donald Trump, stands as the most-watched non-sports cable program of all time, and Fox News’s most-watched program ever.
Additionally, last night’s debate drew a larger audience than Fox News’ previous debate in Iowa in January 2016 without then-candidate Trump which averaged 12.5 million total viewers.
Perhaps a more apples-to-apples comparison is the first Democratic party debate of the 2020 election cycle. The two night event (June 26 and 27, 2019), co-hosted by and airing across NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo, averaged 16.7 million total linear viewers, per Nielsen data. The first night averaged 15.3 million total viewers — 8.7 million tuned into NBC, 5.9 million tuned into MSNBC, and 719,000 watched on Telemundo, the second night averaged 18.1 million viewers across the three networks.
The first GOP primary debate of 2020, while down from the opening debate of the 2016 and 2020 cycles, managed to out-perform six of the ten 2020 Democratic primary debate broadcasts.
Last night’s debate featured Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Governor and ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
On the digital front, according to Adobe Analytics, last night’s debate drove an average minute audience of nearly 200,000 between 9-11 p.m. ET, marking the platform’s highest day of minutes watched on the Fox News livestream this year.
