All the major television networks on Tuesday reported a sharp decline of 20 percent in their viewership from President Trump‘s State of the Union address speech.
According to Neilsen’s rating, “Only 37.2 million Americans turned to TV to watch the 78-minute live broadcast as compared to 46.8 million that was recorded by the 12 TV networks last year.”
One of the reasons for the decline could be the recent poll that showed “Many of the Americans blame both Trump and the news media for their tense relationship.”
In poll done by the Pathways survey last month, showed that “66 percent of the Americans are worn out by the amount of the news these days. And about 48% of people were concerned about the influence of made-up news during the presidential election.”
Examining the data on the viewership, Neilsen said, “Fox News Channel reported the highest viewers with 11.5 million as compared to four major networks like NBC with 4.8 million viewers, CBS with 4.7 million, ABC with 4.1 million, and both CNN and MSNBC with 2-2 million viewers respectively.”
“The viewership data did not include C-SPAN viewers and those who watched the speech online,” Neilsen added.
Showing to the trends of viewership, Ex-President Bill Clinton in his State of the Union in 1999 drew an audience of 43.5 million viewers before his impeachment. Former President Barack Obama drew a total of 42.8 million viewers during his 2011 State of the Union speech.