Americans again tuned into a presidential debate, anticipating fireworks. And while updated numbers for Sunday's rematch between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are quite high — they don't come close to duplicating the first meeting two weeks ago, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
With 10 networks now reporting adjusted ratings for the night, the grand total of linear telecasts is 68.8 million viewers.
That's off roughly 18 percent from the record-breaking haul of the first showdown. That gross excludes NBC News. The typical leader in recent political coverage did not carry the live event in favor of Sunday Night Football.
As anticipated, most of cable news saw a bump from NBC News sitting this one out. MSNBC, in fact, posted its largest-ever audience for a presidential debate with 5.55 million viewers. But CNN topped cable news with its own jump. It averaged 11.23 million viewers after heavily promoting the appearance of its own talent in co-moderator Anderson Cooper. As for Fox News Channel, it saw a slight dip from the first debate to rank No. 2 among cable news networks for the night. FNC averaged 9.96 million viewers.
As for broadcast: CBS News got a healthy boost to 16.5 million viewers, while ABC edged past CNN with 11.5 million viewers. PBS accounted for 2.8 million viewers, while Telemundo averaged 2.4 million viewers.
The first debate set a very high bar. A record 84 million viewers tuned in, besting the previous record set in 1980 when Ronald Regan faced Jimmy Carter.
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