UPDATED, 8:17 AM: More numbers are coming in for Donald Trump’s debut last night before a Joint Session of Congress, and they are looking good for the 45th President over his predecessor’s last State Of the Union.
Going low on the hyperbole and heavy on the history, the President’s highly anticipated speech was a fairly polished performance on a very big stage that caught a lot of Americans’ attention – around 22.7 million actually. That’s up over 25% from what Barack Obama’s final SOTU drew among the Big 4 back on January 14, 2016.
As was the case in the metered-market numbers earlier this morning, NBC was the highest-rated network to show the its f0rmer Celebrity Apprentice host’s 9-10:09 PM ET remarks, drawing a 2.0/7 rating among adults 18-49 and 8.3 million viewers. A strong lead-in by the highest-rated show of the night, The Voice (2.6/10), was no hindrance. ABC was next with a 1.2/4 rating and an audience of 5.13 million. CBS followed with a 1.0/3 and 6.59 million tuning in, and Fox had a 0.8/3 rating and 2.72 million watching between 9 and 10:30 PM.
Overall, the speech had a combined demo of 5.0 or 19% better than Obama’s last SOTU last year.
NBC saw the biggest jump with Trump’s speech over last year’s SOTU in the 18-49 demo with a 33% surge. ABC was up 20%, Fox rose 14%, and CBS stayed the same as Obama last official address to Congress among the key demo.There still are more adjusted ratings to come in and the cable newers of CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC need to be factored in before a final number for last night’s speech can be asserted. (UPDATE: Read cable news’ ratings for the speech here.) Apples to almost a decade ago, POTUS 44’s first Joint Address of February 24, 2009, ended up with a total viewership of just under 52.4 million over 10 national reaching nets from NBC to Fox News Channel and Univision
With the cable news networks and a few others added in, Obama’s final SOTU had a total audience of 31.3 million watching over 13 networks – an all-time low.
In the meantime, there were a few other things on TV on Tuesday before the President’s speech like an NCIS (0.9/3) encore on CBS. Fox had originals of New Girl (0.9/3) and The Mick (0.9/3), which were down a tenth and even from last week, respectively.
After its latest season premiere on Monday, NBC had more of The Voice on Tuesday at 8 PM. The singing competition series from Apprentice EP Mark Burnett dropped a not-so-bad 16% from the debut of the night before. Compared to the 8-10 PM Tuesday premiere of a year ago, which did not share the night with a POTUS, Voice declined 13%. Comedy led into Trump’s remarks on ABC with out-of-their-regular-slots Fresh Off the Boat (1.2/4) and The Real O’Neals (1.1/4). Both up from their February 21 shows, by a tenth and two-tenths, respectively. The CW’s The Flash (1.1/4) had a good night with 10% demo rise over last week.
PREVIOUSLY, 7:38 AM: As Arnold Schwarzenegger can tell you, Donald Trump has never made any secret of his fascination with ratings. It was a bit too early in his term to call last night’s speech a State of the Union but the 45th President’s debut primetime Joint Address on Tuesday before members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs and more looks like a winner with Americans watching at home.
The wide-ranging, primarily upbeat, sometimes emotional and frequently GOP applauded 9 – 10:09 PM ET speech was up from President Barack Obama’s last SOTU last year in the early numbers across almost all the Big 4 networks.
NBC was the highest rated network in metered market results to show the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host’s remarks with a 5.6/9 rating – that’s up 17% in the early numbers from Obama’s last SOTU on January 14, 2016. CBS followed with a 4.5/7 MM result for Trump’s speech in the 9 – 10 slot, basically steady with what Obama got on the House of Moonves last year. ABC’s 3.8/6 was up 3% over the 2016 SOTU and Fox jumped up 11% from Obama’s last SOTU of last year to a 2.1/3 MM result for Trump last night.
We’ll get a greater sense of the larger response when viewership and demo numbers come in later this morning. Right now, in an era of changing TV viewing habits, the best comparison for Trump’s speech on Tuesday again is the final SOTU of President Barack Obama from January 12 last year. In the early ratings, the 44th POTUS snagged 18.1 million viewers and a cume demo of 4.2 in early 2016 – an all-time low for the two-term Democrat.
With the cable news networks and a few others added in, Obama’s final SOTU had a total audience of 31.3 million watching over 13 networks. That was also an all-time Obama SOTU viewership low by less than 2% from his 2015 address.
Coming just over a month after he was sworn in, Obama’s Joint Address of February 24, 2009 had a total viewership of just under 52.4 million over 10 national reaching nets from NBC to Fox News Channel and Univision. George W. Bush’s February 27, 2001 first speech to Congress, also not a SOTU, was watched by 39.8 million in total. In a very different era when FNC wasn’t even on the air, Bill Clinton’s February 17, 1993 Joint Address hit a motherlode total audience of 66.9 million – a number that only W’s pre-Iraq war 2003 SOTU approached in the last two decades with its viewership of 62.1 million.
We’ll update with more numbers for Trump’s speech later on today, especially when the FNC, CNN, MSNBC and more numbers come in.
How can you compare ratings to President Obama’s State of the Union speech in 8th year of a presidency? The actual comparison is the first joint speech to Congress in 2009 and those numbers are way down.
they don’t want to compare it to Obama’s first speech
If people were interested in what Obama had to say 8 years later, it would have been higher. Maybe that’s the point? Plus, the media, including this website, is constantly saying how terrible he is blah blah, but 40+ million people watched, so it’s a big deal is the point.
Agreed!
Better than the overnight ratings is the overnight (and day following) market activity. The Dow is up more than 300 points in response to Trump’s speech.
I guess “Hee Haw” wasn’t on last night.
it was lower that Obama’s first speech
Showing that one party is more partisan than the other?
Explain your logic please
If it was Lower than obamas first speech that would mean that more republican watched obama, putting aside partisan differences than Dems did for trump.
Or there’s simply more Americans watching. You didn’t convince me.
You should assume that the base for each party was watching, which is an almost equivalent number in America. Therefore, if the bases are essentially equivalent, the difference in numbers comes down to the watchers from the other party. This is logical and without further study passes the logic test, thereby providing theoretical proof of my prior statement.
To provide further evidence of the “base” watching, knowing how “historic” Obama’s presidency was, it is beyond safe and logical yet again to assume that the base of his party was watching. We can go into more minutia and detail concerning party inclinations to be involved, participate, watch events, etc. (we can point to the debates as examples for party watching), but it is not necessary. Common sense, applied to these statements, bears a logical conclusion, which was given in a prior comment.
The lack of convincing a random person on the internet does not make it less valid or wrong, however, here is a better attempt to explain.
60 million voted for him. That more than covers viewership. Tell us again about your logical approach…
Last time I checked Americans can’t live on tv ratings.
How dare you bring that here, to this place.
Watching Chaos unfold is entertaining. That’s why people watched.
The “apples to apples” comparison aka both President’s 1st State the Union is the only comparison that matters. By the end Obama had done almost everything he had set out to do, left the economy in a much better place than he inherited it, and we didn’t need to see live what he said. His actions had already spoken for him. I hate this term but this is damn near “fake news.”
If everything was soooooo great, trump NEVER would have been elected.
Since when is the best comparison for a new show the previous show in that time slots finale?! Never.
Everyone likes to watch a car crash. That’s what makes NASCAR popular.
Your ignorant headline is incorrect. A correct apples too apples comparison would have been Obamas 1st State of the union compared to 45’s 1st State of the Union. Obama had 33.6 Million to 45’s 23 Million.
Back in my day sonny we listened to the radio! Nobody gives a crap about ancient history buddy.
Some folks wanted to know how bad it could get. People who have read history, follow global news, and tend to think about things—watch C-Span—read the Dark Money book on the “above the 1%” takeover of our politics and institutions, already know how bad it can get. Anyone who isn’t really rich is about to suffer like never before..
Down 17% from Obama’s first speech to Congress though.
SAD!
Brick and mortar retailers a closing stores because of online competition, which is quantified by business sites. Who is quantifying the online streaming of events like this? Until those numbers come in, ratings of netorks and cble channels mean nothing.