The second night of the Democratic presidential debates made TV history as the most-watched with over 18 Million viewers.
Last night’s debate was also the top Democratic debate ever in the key A25-54 demo and attracted more than 9 million live stream viewers, surpassing the metrics on the previous night.
The second night of the DNC-sanctioned debate averaged 18.1 million television viewers, with 5.3 million in A25-54 and 4.4 million in A18-49 across NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo from 9:00-11:00pm ET. The debate live stream saw 9 million viewers and 14 million video views across all platforms last night, including NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com, Telemundo.com, NBC News NOW on OTT devices, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Users spent an average of over 50 minutes watching the debate via on-net platforms, longer than the previous night, according to Adobe Analytics.
Last night’s debate surpassed the previous highest-rated Democratic presidential primary debate (10/13/2015) by +2.6 million total viewers (+17%) and +378,000 viewers in Adults 25-54 (+8%). Compared to night one of the Democratic debate, TV viewership was up by +2.8 million viewers (+19%) and +936,000 viewers in Adults 25-54 (+22%) with all three individual networks seeing growth.
The digital debate content garnered more than 27 million total views for the day and more than 45 million total views for both nights, across all platforms and devices. NBC Stay Tuned’s coverage of the debates attracted more than 2.5 million users, 75% under the age of 25. Across OTT devices, more than half of the viewers who watched the first debate, also tuned in to the second night.
The Democratic debate was moderated by Lester Holt, anchor of NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC, Savannah Guthrie, TODAY co-host and NBC News chief legal correspondent, Chuck Todd, moderator of Meet the Press and NBC News political director, Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and José Díaz-Balart, anchor of Noticias Telemundo and NBC Nightly News Saturday.
Thursday’s debate featured the following ten candidates: Sen. Michael Bennet (CA), former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, IN), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Sen. Kamala Harris (CA), former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA), author Marianne Williamson and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.