TV Ratings: Vice Presidential Debate Draws Second-Largest Crowd Ever
In the latest TV ratings, Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence, Kamala Harris and Seth Brundle amassed 57.9 million total viewers across broadcast and cable channels, up nearly 60 percent from the comparable tally for Kaine/Pence four years ago to rank as the second-largest VP debate audience ever (trailing only Biden/Pail 2008, which drew 70 mil).
The above grand total includes ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, CNN, MSNBC, Newsmax, PBS and others.
TVLine readers gave VP debate moderator Susan Page an average grade of “C-,” compared to first (and only?) presidential debate overseer Chris Wallace’s “D-.”
Elsewhere on Wednesday night:
FOX | The Masked Singer (5.7 mil/1.4) dropped 17 and 26 percent from last week.
THE CW | Patrick Dempsey’s Devils made its Stateside debut to 621K and a 0.1, on par with The 100‘s final season average. Leading out of that, Coroner‘s Season 2 premiere (717K/0.1) matched its Season 1 average on The CW.
CBS | Big Brother (4.2 mil/0.9) dipped a tenth week-to-week.
NBC | A special installment of Weakest Link (4.5 mil/0.8) matched its Tuesday numbers, giving the time slot its best rating since April 15.
The Live+Same Day numbers reported in our ratings column do not reflect a show’s overall performance, given the increased use of delayed playback via DVR and streaming platforms, plus out-of-home viewing. These numbers (Nielsen fast nationals, unless denoted as finals) instead aim to simply illustrate trends or superlatives. Warning: Contents may be hot!
Want scoop on any of the above shows? Email
