ABC News and Fox News emerged as the big winners of the 2024 Presidential Debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, according to early Nielsen ratings.
The ratings show ABC — which produced and distributed the debate — drew the highest prime-time audience, grabbing 18.312 million households and 6.241 million viewers among the key advertiser-favored demographic of adults ages 25 to 54 years old (A25-54).
The debate was the second to be held during the 2024 race for president, and the first featuring Harris since she accepted the Democratic Party nomination for president. The first debate, produced and distributed by CNN in June, featured incumbent President Joe Biden debating Trump; Biden withdrew from the race a few weeks later amid a firestorm of controversy over his debate performance.
The ABC News debate was accepted by candidates from both parties around the same time that the invitation from CNN was extended, and well before Biden dropped out. For a few weeks, Trump hinted he might not participate in the ABC News debate at all, a situation made more complicated by a defamation lawsuit he filed against the network, which is still pending.
Like the CNN debate, ABC News agreed to provide other broadcasters and news outlets with a live feed of the debate that they were permitted to simulcast, assuming they agreed to certain conditions. Those rules include a stipulation that broadcasters not obscure the ABC News logo, refer to ABC News in promotions and TV listings for the debate, take the event in full and not interject their own coverage or commentary while the debate is live.
Nearly all other broadcast and cable networks took ABC up on their offer, as they did with the CNN debate. Once again, Fox News was the most-watched network offering the debate simulcast, with 8.668 million people tuning in from 9 p.m. to 10:45 p.m. Eastern Time. By comparison, CNN grabbed 4.114 million viewers, while MSNBC had 6.015 million viewers during the same time period, according to preliminary Nielsen data.
When coupled with sister network Fox Business and the Fox broadcast network, Fox News Media saw 13.695 million people tune in to watch the ABC News debate on their TV channels. A Fox News Media spokesperson put the number slightly higher at 13.9 million viewers, which included the number of people who streamed the debate on Fox Nation — suggesting around 205,000 people watched on the Fox News Media-owned streaming service. By comparison, around 13.421 million people tuned in to watch the CNN debate in June across Fox platforms.
Among the broadcast networks, NBC had the highest viewership outside of ABC itself, with 9.701 million people watching the debate there. CBS clocked in second with 5.908 million viewers, followed by Fox at 4.74 million viewers.
