Trump draws fewer viewers than Biden for convention speech

President Trump’s convention speech drew fewer views than former Vice President Joe Biden’s, according to preliminary numbers released by Nielsen Media Research. 

Trump accepted his party’s nomination from the south lawn of the White House on Thursday night.

An estimated 19.9 million Americans watched Trump’s speech on television, while Democratic nominee Joe Biden drew 21.7 million viewers the week before. 

The ratings were based on nine television networks for the fourth night of both the Republican and Democratic conventions. These figures do not include the number of people who streamed Biden’s and Trump’s speeches online. 

By comparison, Trump’s State of the Union address attracted almost twice as many viewers, with 37.1 million people watching.

In 2016, 34.1 million tuned in to watch then-candidate Trump deliver his 2016 keynote speech during the Republican National Convention. 

Outside of Tuesday night, the Democrat’s convention outdrew the GOP three of its four nights on traditional television.

Fox News led all networks in viewership, drawing 9.9 million viewers in total for four nights of the convention, and beating ABC, NBC, CNN and MSNBC combined.

ABC came in second, with 2.58 million viewers, followed by NBC with 2.28 million viewers. CNN was fourth with 2.18 million total viewers, ahead of CBS’s 1.78 million.

Fox News said it delivered the most-watched prime-time convention average in the history of cable news.