President Obama’s Oval Office address on Sunday pulled in a massive audience of 46 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
The speech, designed to soothe concerns about the threat posed by terrorism in the wake of attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., aired across 12 networks. Obama went on the air at 8 p.m., just before NBC’s popular “Sunday Night Football” broadcast.
Republicans, and some Democrats, panned Obama’s speech as not being forceful or detailed enough about his plans to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
{mosads}But the ratings show Obama’s message on terrorism reached a broad audience.
By comparison, just under 32 million Americans tuned into the president’s State of the Union address this year. Sunday’s speech also attracted a larger audience than Obama’s 2014 and 2013 State of the Union speeches, which pulled in around 33 million viewers each.
Among cable networks, Fox News led the way, with 3.3 million viewers, according to Deadline Hollywood. More than 1.7 million watched on CNN, and 861,000 saw the address on MSNBC.
While Obama’s critics noted the speech offered little new information, the president’s allies say it was an opportunity to bring his message to a new audience.
“Pundits and reporters: you are not the audience, POTUS is focused on the larger audience that doesn’t follows these things as closely as you,” former White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted on Sunday.