Republican, Democratic Conventions Draw More Than 50 Million Viewers

By R. Thomas Umstead
published

More than 50 million viewers combined tuned into the Democratic and Republican national conventions, according to Nielsen. 

Lat week's Democratic convention in Philadelphia averaged 26.2 million viewers over four days (July 27-30), compared to 24.6 million viewers for the Republican national convention in Cleveland a week prior (July 18-21) across multiple ad-supported networks, according to Nielsen.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s speech Thursday drew 29.5 million viewers across 10 ad-supported channels according to Nielsen, marking the most-viewed night of the four-day convention.

The audience, however, fell short of the 32.2 million viewers that tuned into Donald Trump’s July 28 Republican acceptance speech, according to Nielsen.

R. Thomas Umstead
R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.