The allure of gathering some snacks and tuning into television coverage to discover America’s next presidential choice seemed significantly diminished this year compared to previous elections.
According to Nielsen, approximately 42.3 million viewers followed the election night updates between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump last Tuesday. This marks a considerable decline from the 56.9 million who watched the 2020 election night when Trump faced off against Joe Biden, and even more starkly from the 71.4 million viewers who tuned in during the 2016 election night, Nielsen reported.
Typically, election night is regarded as television news’s equivalent of the Super Bowl; however, this year, the audience numbers were overshadowed by the NFL’s conference championship games, which attracted larger crowds.
Overall, television viewership has been on the decline over the last ten years as more people opt to forgo cable and satellite packages. As a result, it’s challenging to interpret whether this year’s decline is due to a shift in how people consume news or a general decrease in interest in following the election results.
The three major cable news channels — CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC — contributed to a significant portion of the audience decline, accounting for just over 10 million fewer viewers.
On election night, Fox News Channel emerged as the top-rated network, with 9.8 million viewers tuning in for the results from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern Time. Although networks did not start officially declaring the results until after 1 a.m. on Wednesday, the probability of Trump’s potential success was becoming clearer well before that time.
In comparison, Fox had garnered 13.7 million viewers during the 2020 election night when it once again led the viewership ratings.
CNN’s viewership dropped to 4.7 million this year, which is nearly half of the 9.1 million it had in 2020. Meanwhile, MSNBC recorded 5.5 million viewers, down from 7.3 million during the last presidential election, according to Nielsen.
Among broadcast networks, ABC attracted 5.7 million viewers, NBC brought in 5.3 million, and CBS had 3.5 million viewers, as reported by Nielsen.