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UPDATED, with additional numbers: Viewership of the first night of the Republican National Convention rose slightly from 2020, with an estimated 18.13 million tuning in to the 10 p.m. ET hour across 12 networks, according to Nielsen.
That’s up slightly from the first night of the Republican National Convention in 2020, which was held in Washington and largely virtual because of the Covid pandemic. That first night drew 17 million across 11 networks.
The 2024 convention first-night viewership was still less than 2016, when an estimated 23 million tuned in across seven networks.
Major broadcast networks carried the final hour of convention proceeding on Monday, highlighted by Donald Trump‘s arrival at the Fiserv Forum, his first public appearance since surviving an assassination attempt. Speakers during the hour included Amber Rose and Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters.
The hour also saw the first appearance of Trump together with J.D. Vance, after he selected the Ohio senator to be his vice presidential running mate.
According to Nielsen, the convention drew 13.52 million viewers in the 55+ audience, 3.36 million in the 35-54 demo and 792,000 in the 18-34 age range.
Among major networks, Fox News topped in the 10 p.m. ET hour with 6.86 million viewers, followed by ABC News with 2.28 million, NBC News with 2.24 million, CBS News with 1.82 million, MSNBC with 1.27 million and CNN with 1.11 million. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News posted 1.24 million, followed by NBC News with 582,000, ABC News with 569,000, CNN with 409,000, CBS News with 386,000 and MSNBC with 179,000.
Earlier in the evening, NBC News and MSNBC featured Lester Holt’s interview with President Joe Biden. That interview drew an average of 4.8 million viewers on both of those networks. NBC also won the timeslot at 9 p.m. ET against broadcast competition. The interview also averaged 861,000 in the adults 25-54 demo across both networks.
On Fox News, Sean Hannity’s interview with Vance drew 6.12 million viewers, and 1.01 million in the 25-54 demo.