The convention had more viewers than 2020 but fewer than 2016.
By Jared Mitovich
Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination acceptance speech Thursday drew an average of 28.9 million viewers across cable television, according to Nielsen ratings — about 500,000 more viewers than tuned in to hear former President Donald Trump at the Republican convention.
Over 26 million viewers watched the fourth night of Democratic National Convention programming overall, including 6.7 million viewers in the coveted 18-54-year-old demographic, Nielsen said. The DNC also drew about an average of 3 million more viewers than last month’s RNC over the four nights — averaging 21.8 million viewers, compared to the RNC’s average of 18.9 million viewers.
The figures released Friday mean the 2024 DNC had an average of about 200,000 more viewers than 2020 but 8.2 million less than 2016, when 30 million people watched former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton become the first woman to accept a major party’s presidential nomination.
This year’s convention, boasting a number of celebrities from Oprah to Tony Goldwyn and many big Democratic names, was a major boon for MSNBC, which took up a big chunk of the total TV audience.
MSNBC said that it averaged over 6.5 million viewers between 9 and 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, including 7.2 million viewers during Harris’ 40-minute speech — which it said was the network’s highest viewership ever for a DNC. Over 3.9 million people tuned in to CNN to watch the fourth night of the DNC, the network said.
By comparison, Fox News said it drew over 10 million viewers during the hour in which Trump accepted the Republican nomination at the RNC in July. Trump’s speech, which like Harris’ came on the last night of his convention, netted 28.4 million viewers across the major TV networks, according to Nielsen ratings.
Over 19 million viewers tuned in for President Joe Biden’s late-night speech on the first night of the DNC, according to Nielsen, slightly less than the 20 million total DNC viewers on cable television that night. Former President Barack Obama drew an audience of 21 million on Tuesday.