No debate: Dem candidates, NFL football lead field
Record viewership made the first debate among Democratic candidates in the 2016 presidential campaign last week’s mostwatched cable program, while NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” was the mostwatched program for the fourth time in the four-weekold prime-time TV season.
CNN’s coverage of the Oct. 13 debate from Las Vegas averaged 15.79 million viewers, the most for a primary debate involving Democratic candidates, according to live-plus-sameday figures released by Nielsen on Tuesday.
The previous record was 10.7 million for the April 16, 2008, debate that aired on ABC. The previous cable record was 8.3 million for the Jan. 31, 2008, debate, which also ran on CNN. The audience was the sixth-largest among nonsports cable programs.
The viewership was smaller than both debates among the top-tier Republican candidates this cycle.
The Aug. 6 debate on Fox News Channel averaged 24 million viewers, the most for a nonsports program in cable television history. The Sept. 16 debate on CNN averaged 23.06 million viewers, the most in the history of the network that began broadcasting in 1980.
The debate was the fourth-largest viewership among prime-time broadcast and cable shows airing between Oct. 12 and Sunday, trailing NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” (22.82 million), the nine-minute “Sunday Night Football” kickoff show and CBS’ “NCIS” (16.04 million).
CBS was the mostwatched network for the fourth time this season, averaging 10.37 million viewers. NBC was second, averaging 8.35 million, followed by ABC, which averaged 6.14 million, and Fox, which averaged 4.19 million.
The network order of finish has been identical for all three weeks of the season.
are the combined rankings for national prime-time network and cable television last week (Oct. 12-18) as compiled by Nielsen. They are based on the average number of people who watched a program from start to finish during its scheduled telecast or on a playback device the same day. Nielsen estimates there are 289 million potential viewers in the U.S. ages 2 and older. Viewership is listed in millions.