First night of GOP convention delivers nearly six times more views than start of Democrats’ event on C-SPAN livestream

C-SPAN’s livestream of the first night of the Republican National Convention has attracted nearly 440,000 views, marking a substantial increase over the start of the Democratic National Convention, which drew 76,000 views.

The numbers for Monday night come ahead of traditional TV ratings from Nielsen Media Research, which will be released on Tuesday afternoon.

According to Nielsen, 18.7 million people tuned in to the first night of the virtual Democratic convention from Milwaukee and Wilmington, Del., on Aug. 17, which featured speeches from former first lady Michelle Obama and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R)

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s speech on Thursday night was watched by 21.8 million people on TV, beating out the numbers for other major speeches at the party’s convention earlier in the week.

Still, the numbers for Biden mark a 21 percent drop from presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in 2016. They are also more than 38 percent lower than President Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention four years ago, which drew 34.9 million viewers.

The second night of the Republican convention will feature speeches from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and first lady Melania Trump, as well as President Trump’s son Eric Trump.