NBC News’ Joe Biden Town Hall Sets Ratings Record for 2020 Election Cycle

NBC News’ forum with Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden scored the best town hall combined ratings of the 2020 election cycle across all three networks, NBC, MSNBC and CNBC.

According to Nielsen Media Research, 6.7 million Americans watched the hour-long event, held in Miami, Florida. That bested the audience for ABC News’ town hall with President Donald Trump from mid-September, which averaged just under four million total viewers. And NBC’s forum also surpassed the 3.5 million viewers for CNN’s Biden town hall in September.

NBC’s steaming app, NBC News Now also recorded an additional two million viewers watching the town hall online.

The breakdown of the town hall’s viewers included 3.9 million total viewers for NBC’s broadcast network, 2.7 million for MSNBC, and under 200,000 for CNBC. In the coveted 25 – 54 age demographic, the event pulled in a combined total of 1.4 million viewers, roughly 900,000 on NBC, 437,000 on MSNBC, and the remainder on CNBC.

MSNBC’s share of cable news viewers during the town hall, however, was less impressive. In Monday’s 8:00 p.m hour, its ratings in the demo came in third, behind Anderson Cooper 360′s 644,000 A25 – 54 viewers and Tucker Carlson Tonight‘s 924,000. Among total cable viewers, MSNBC’s town hall performed better relative to its competition, coming in second behind Fox News’ 4.92 million overall viewers but above CNN’s 2.36 million.