Trump’s Inauguration Ratings Down Bigly From Biden’s
Photo by: WILL OLIVER/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
The television ratings for President Donald Trump’s second inauguration are in, and they dropped 27% from President Joe Biden’s in 2021 and were nearly 20% lower than Trump’s first swearing-in in 2017.
Unsurprisingly, Fox News dominated the ratings for the festivities in the nation’s capital, beating out both their broadcast and cable competitors, and drawing in the second-highest ratings for Inauguration Day coverage in the network’s history, according to a Fox News press release. An average of 10.3 million viewers tuned into Fox News from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm ET Monday, including 2 million in the advertiser-coveted demographic of ages 25-54.
CNN averaged 1.7 million viewers during that same time period, MSNBC 848,000 viewers (the network has traditionally come in third for Inauguration Day coverage), ABC 4.7 million viewers, CBS 4.1 million viewers, and NBC 4.4 million viewers, according to early viewing numbers from Nielsen reported by The Wrap’s Loree Seitz.
Altogether, Trump’s triumphant return to the White House drew an average total viewership for the day (tracking from 10:30 am to 7:00 pm ET) of 24.59 million viewers, reported The Wrap. That figure is based on combining viewer numbers from fifteen networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, Merit Street Media, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation, and PBS.
That number of 24.59 million viewers was 27% lower than Biden’s 2021 inauguration (33.76 million viewers tracked from 17 channels) was 19.75% lower than Trump’s first inauguration in 2021 (30.64 million viewers across 12 networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, Univision, Telemundo, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Galavision, and HLN).
The Wrap also analyzed the demographic breakdown of the viewers. Monday’s audience drew 1.43 million viewers ages 18-34, 4.67 million viewers ages 35-54, and 17.4 million viewers over 55, while the audience from 2021 was 2.85 million viewers ages 18-34, 8.21 million viewers ages 35-54, and 21 million viewers over 55.
Additional data from the early Nielsen numbers provided to Mediaite:
11:30 AM – 1 PM/ET
FNC: 10.3 million P2+; 2 million A25-54
CNN: 1.7 million P2+; 534,000 A25-54
MSNBC: 848,000 P2+; 104,000 A25-54
FBN: 282,000 P2+ ; 16,000 A25-54
ABC: 4.7 million P2+; 1.1 million A25-54
CBS: 4.1 million P2+; 907,000 A25-54
NBC: 4.4 million P2+; 1.2 million A25-5412-1 PM/ET
FNC: 10,588,000 P2+; 2,083,000 A25-54
CNN – 1,739,000 P2+; 536,000 A25-54
MSNBC – 882,000 P2+; 108,000 A25-54
FBN – 290,000 P2+; 14,000 A25-547 – 11 PM/ET
FNC: 6.2 million P2+; 1.1 million A25-54
CNN: 1 million P2+; 289,000 A25-54
MSNBC: 1 million P2+; 88,000 A25-548 – 11 PM/ET
FNC: 6.1 million P2+; 1 million A25-54
CNN: 1 million P2+; 269,000 A25-54
MSNBC: 1.1 million P2; 93,000 A25-54
