President Trump’s triumphant joint address to Congress Tuesday night attracted 13 percent more viewers than former President Joe Biden’s final State of the Union address.
The far-left Variety reports that across platforms measured by Nielsen, 36.6 million viewers tuned in to watch Trump’s address, compared to the 32.2 million who tuned in to watch Biden in 2024.
Trump’s 36.6 million viewers Tuesday night were lower than his previous congressional addresses during his first term. “His 2017 address reached 47.7 million viewers,” per Variety, “followed by 45.6 million in 2018, 46.8 in 2019 and 37.2 million in 2020.”
Trump’s Tuesday night address still topped all but one of Biden’s State of the Union speeches. “Biden’s most-watched State of the Union was in 2022, when he drew 38.2 million viewers,” Variety adds. “[H]is first address in 2021 hit 26.9 million and in 2023 he reached 27.3 million.”
Nielsen measures across a ton of platforms — ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Merit Street, Telemundo, Univision, PBS, CNN, FOX Business, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, Newsmax and NewsNation — but might have still missed some. I caught some sort of flu bug over the the weekend that is still kicking my ass today, so I missed the speech. Slept right through it. My wife watched it though, I think on YouTube. Did Nielsen measure that? Does Nielsen measure the Fox News apps on Roku?
People watch TV in a hundred different ways now, including the next day on websites and social media. How do you measure that?
I’m in no way trying to make excuses for Trump failing to attract the same number of viewers he did during his first term. That’s not my point at all. But I do think our viewing habits have changed rather drastically over the last eight years. In the past, as sick as I was, I would’ve made a point of recording Trump’s speech to ensure I wouldn’t miss it. These days I don’t even own a recorder. It’s not even a concern. So, even though I knew I’d sleep through it, I also knew I could watch it the next day … somewhere. And I did watch it the following day.
It’s a whole new world.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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