Democratic Debate Night 1 Looks To Snare 18M Viewers For NBC, But Still No 2016

The first Democratic presidential hopefuls debate for the 2020 election season was effortlessly dominated by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but NBC looks to be the real contender, at least in the ratings. The debated snagged a 6.9/13 in metered market results on the Comcast-owned network, with the two-hour, 10-candidate hoopla scoring a very healthy 2.5/11 in the 18-49 demographic in the early numbers.

As a simultaneous comparison and an indicator, that’s on point with the early metrics America’s Got Talent scored for NBC on June 25. That 8-10 PM show went on to pull in 10.13 million viewers in the final Nielsen numbers – which could be what we see for the first of the two-night whirlwind event that last night featured Warren, Bill de Blasio, Tim Ryan, Julián Castro, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee and John Delaney.

However, the fact is an audience of 10 million may just be the starting point for last night’s 9-11 PM ET live (and technically challenged) showdown hosted by Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and José Diaz-Balar.

Now, there is little chance that Wednesday’s jostling among Warren and the low-pollers will top the 24 million that tuned in for the Donald Trump-dominated GOP frontrunners debate of August 6, 2015, which aired only on Fox News Channel. However, the opening night of the Democrats’ pageant will surely match and looks to exceed the 16 million that watched the first Democratic debate of the 2016 campaign on October 13, 2015 on CNN with Hilary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and three other guys we’ve all forgotten.

Why?

Because last night’s debate, like tonight’s Sanders featuring debate, wasn’t just shown on NBC, but also MSNBC and Telemundo. On the cable newser, the debate grabbed an impressive 4.7/8, and on the Hispanic net, the sometimes in Spanish (mainly from former Obama cabinet member and ex-San Antonio Mayor Castro and failed 2016 Texas Senate candidate O’Rourke) snared a 0.6/1.

That’s a total of 12.2/22 in metered markets for the first night of the first Democratic 2020 primary debates – very good indeed for the NBCU gang, especially when you consider last night’s candidates were the B Team for the most part. The numbers-obsessed Trump will at least take some comfort in the fact that’s down nearly 20% from the first GOP debate in 2015 on FNC.

Still, add all that together, plus the NBC streaming data, and we could be looking at up to 18 million sets of eyeballs in total when all is said and done for last night’s debate.

Having said that, the just-released fast affiliates show 7.4 million watched on NBC alone. Yet, as with all live events like potential POTUS debates, SOTU speeches, award shows and sports games, those results are fairly fluid and will see change later in the day.

On a night that NBC obviously won, we’ll update with more Democratic debate ratings as they come in – and get ready for Round 2 tonight with Biden, Bernie, Buttigieg, Kamala Harris and six others.

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