UPDATE: 35.6 Million Watch Vice Presidential Debate, Down From ’08, ’12

According to the early overnight Nielsen numbers, Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence drew a smaller audience than the 2008 and 2012 debates.

CNN’s Brian Stelter reports that total viewership for the debate — which was broadcast on 12 networks including all of the big four — is likely to fall somewhere between 40 and 50 million. That number would fall short of the Joe Biden-Paul Ryan face-off in 2012, which notched 51.4 million viewers. And it would fall well short of the record 69.9 million people who tuned in to watch Biden and Sarah Palin square off in 2008.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, ABC, CBS, and NBC averaged a 13.2 rating among households. NBC, according to the Reporter led the way amongst the big four. CNN’s report notes that NBC posted a 4.9 rating last night. Ordinarily, the network which employs the debate moderator gets a bit of a bump. But early data seems to indicate that CBS lagged behind ABC and NBC, despite the fact that CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano moderated.

We will update with more data as it becomes available.

[image via screengrab]

UPDATE 3:22 p.m. ET – Adweek reports that the final numbers were a bit more dire than initially forecast. A total of 35.6 million people watched the debate across eight networks. NBC led the way with slightly more than 7 million viewers. CBS finished second with approximately 6.46 million.

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