President Trump’s Inauguration Watched by Nearly 25 Million Viewers, Down 21% From 2017
Monday’s inauguration of Donald J. Trump as 47th president of the United States was watched by an estimated 24.6 million viewers, Nielsen reports, with viewership peaking at 34.4 million viewers during the 12:15 pm ET quarter-hour.
That crowd size marks a 21% decrease from Trump’s inaugural inauguration, which drew 31 million viewers on Jan. 20, 2017. (It’s also down 27% from the 33.8 million who tuned in for President Joe Biden’s Jan. 20, 2021 inauguration.)
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Note, second inaugurations almost always draw a smaller audience than the first — 16% to 45% smaller, the past five decades have shown us. Though second inaugurations also almost always occur four years after the first, and not eight years apart.
Of the audience above, 71% of viewers fell into the 55+ age bracket, while just 6% were aged 18-34.
Looking at the Household Rating of 14.1, Trump’s second, non-continuous inauguration was the third-lowest rated since at least 1969, with only George W. Bush’s (11.8) and Barack Obama’s (14.0) second times around rating lower.
While coverage varied by network, 15 networks aired the 60th Inauguration Day events from approximately 10:30 am to 7 pm ET; the grand tally above includes ABC, CBS, NBC, Merit Street Media, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, CNNe, FOX News Channel, FOX Business Network, MSNBC, Newsmax, NewsNation and PBS.
TVLine readers gave the 47’s inauguration an average grade of… just kidding, we didn’t run a poll on that. But Carrie Underwood’s (impromptu a cappella, amid technical issues) performance of “America the Beautiful” averaged a “B-.”
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