57.5 million people watched ABC debate, exceeding first matchup

Tuesday’s combative, high-energy debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump drew 57.5 million television viewers on the major broadcast and cable news networks, according to early numbers from the ratings agency Nielsen.

The full audience tally is expected to be even higher when Nielsen releases numbers from additional television networks later Wednesday.

But the audience clearly exceeded the viewership of the June 27 debate between Trump and Joe Biden, which drew 51.3 million viewers across 16 television networks that aired it.

It’s not clear yet whether Tuesday’s debate can match the 63 million people who watched the second debate of the 2020 presidential cycle.

And no debate is likely to come close to matching the audience for the first matchup between Trump and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, which drew a massive 84 million viewers.

Over the past eight years, a considerable number of Americans have stopped paying for and watching cable networks, meaning that more viewership is moving to streaming services that are not tracked by Nielsen.

Many of those streaming services, including free offerings from major television networks, saw massive viewership on Tuesday night as well. NBC’s streaming service, NBC News Now, attracted its largest prime-time audience on record, up 89 percent from its previous high, on the final night of this year’s Democratic National Convention.

Tuesday’s debate, which was hosted by ABC, was generally expected to draw more viewers than CNN’s debate, which was held during a time of year - late June - when television viewership is generally lower. It was also held much earlier in the calendar than previous debates, which generally take place in the fall.

Not surprisingly, debate host ABC drew the largest audience, 18.3 million viewers, followed by NBC, with 9.7 million. Fox News was the most-watched cable news network for the event, followed by MSNBC and CNN.