Biden’s ABC Town Hall Viewership Tops Trump’s NBC, MSNBC & CNBC Event In Big Surprise Win – Update

Dominic Patten
·5 min read
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UPDATE, 10:37 AM: We all know that Donald Trump is obsessed with ratings and his losing results of last night’s dueling town halls with Joe Biden may hurt almost as much as losing the election, almost.

That’s a hypothetical leading to the November 3 vote, but with more numbers just in, we know for sure that the former Vice-President just walloped the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host when it comes to America voting with their clickers.

Up from the fast affiliates of earlier this morning, the latest numbers have ABC News’ The Vice-President and the People getting 14.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

That beats the 13 million that Trump got on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC put together for his own much-hyped and lambasted town hall. Yes, over three Comcast-owned channels, the incumbent still lost to the poll topping Biden, who was just on one channel.

Let’s be honest, Biden’s viewership win and record breaking 2020 town hall is a stark reversal of what everyone, including NBC, Trump and myself, thought would be the outcome. In fact, once you strip away the 1.74 million viewers that the MSNBC simulcast snared and the 671,000 viewers that tuned in on CNBC, Trump really came up short with an audience of 10.6 million on NBC proper with a top notch Savannah Guthrie.

Trump’s town hall went from 8 – 9 PM ET, while Biden took the win in terms of time with an 8 – 9:30 PM ET event …that he didn’t actually leave for almost an hour after it was officially over in talking to voters one-on-one.

Looking at the ratings, Biden got a 3.0 among adults 18-49 and a 3.8 in the news demo of adults 25-54 overall. In the 8 – 9 PM ET hour, Biden was number #1 also with a 2.9 rating in the 18-49s to Trump’s 2.1 and a 3.7 in the 25-54s to the incumbent’s 3.0 on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC.

Coming up next is the Presidential debate set for October 22 when the two candidates will actually be on stage together …maybe.

PREVIOUSLY, 8:20 AM: After all the concerns about threats to democracy in the pursuit of ratings, Thursday’s dueling town halls between Donald Trump on NBC and Joe Biden on ABC ended up being a very good night for Savannah Guthrie, a very very good night for the Atlanta Braves and a most excellent night for the former Vice-President.

Sitting down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos and voters at Philadelphia’s Constitution Hall on what should have been the night of the second Presidential debate, there were concerns that Biden’s long scheduled town hall would be eclipsed by the former Celebrity Apprentice host’s last-minute deal with his former network home.

Those worries proved unfounded because poll leading Biden took Trump to the ratings cleaners.

The ex-Veep’s 8 – 9:30 PM ET The Vice-President and the People snagged 12.2 million viewers and a 2.6 rating among adults 18-49 last night. Over on the Comcast-owned net, a petulant Trump was grilled by Guthrie and voters in Miami from 8 – 9 PM ET as 10.3 million Americans tuned in, with a 1.7 rating among the key demo.

You can do the math, but the numbers speak loud and clear.

Now, those numbers will all change as more results come in and the Trump town hall has the baked in advantage of being simulcast on MSNBC and CNBC too. However, right now in the fast affiliates, we are calling it a solid win for Joe Biden.

In what will likely sting the ratings obsessed incumbent, the early ratings for Trump’s ABC town hall of September 15 were down a harsh 77% in the demo from what Biden scored last night. Looking at viewership Trump’s 90-minute town hall on the Disney-owned net last month was 69% less than what the fact and detailed filled Biden pulled in.

Up against Trump’s heavily self hyped NBC town hall of last night, Biden’s October 5 town hall with Lester Holt on the same net initially had an audience of 3.8 million and a 0.5 rating. With less obvious political drama than last night, that Biden NBC town hall was also up against the NFL as the Kansas City Chiefs thrashed the New England Patriots 26-10 …which a lot of people watched, as you can gather.

Over on Fox, the Peach state baseball team solidified their lead in the NL Championship series 3-1 over the LA Dodgers with a 10 – 2 win. That was also a win for the Murdoch-owned net with a rating of 0.7 and 2.5 million viewers in the early numbers from Nielsen – results that are certain to rise when adjusted metrics come in later.

Not playing politics or sports, the CW had Supernatural (1.028 millio, 0.3) and Outpost (633K, 0.1)

We will of course update as more metrics come in … but here’s how Atlanta and probably Joe Biden are feeling this AM:

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