AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

The 1/3 2024 Republican presidential primary debate hosted with the aid of NBC Information and Salem Media Group on Wednesday night failed to rake in any place close to the quantity of viewers that the earlier two debates did, that have been held through Fox News and Fox Business Network.

NBC brought in 6.86 million complete viewers and 1.three million viewers in the key 25-fifty four age demographic all the way through the eight p.m. to 10 p.m. debate, consistent with Nielsen. The first debate this cycle, hosted via Fox Information in late August scored some 12.eight million complete viewers and a pair of.eight million viewers in the demo. The 2nd debate hosted by Fox Trade Network in late September introduced in 9.three million complete viewers and 1.89 million demo viewers.

The significant drop in viewership is an plain increase to former President Donald Trump who has thumbed his nostril on the Republican National Committee and vowed to skip all of the debates. Trump as a substitute hosted a rally in Florida, not too a ways from the controversy in Miami. Many have puzzled the relevance of having GOP debates with out Trump existing as he’s top the sector by means of a large margin. The most recent CNN poll had him up forty four points over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), 61% to 17% with the rest of the sphere trailing even more.

The NBC debate received excessive reward from journalists and pundits for its moderators, NBC Nightly Information anchor Lester Holt, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, and Salem Radio’s Hugh Hewitt, who managed to keep control of the candidates and behavior the debate in an excellent and professional way. Wednesday night time’s debate best had 5 candidates on the debate stage, whereas the earlier two debates had eight and 7, respectively.

NBC Information did hype its streaming service viewership for the controversy, noting Wednesday used to be “NBC News NOW’s greatest primetime target audience ever.”

The submit Third GOP Debate Ratings Plummet on NBC in What Might Be Great News for Trump first appeared on Mediaite.