Debate ratings

Early debate ratings give ammo to Trump, but Fox News still sees strong result

By Hadas Gold

Fox Entertainmnet News' Trump-less debate Thursday night drew an 8.4 household rating, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings first posted by CNN.

That means 8.4 percent of rated households with TVs were tuned in — a large number for a typical night, but not among the highest when it comes to debate nights.

The debate scored a higher household rating than the previous debate, on Fox Business Network. It had a household rating of 7.4, which translated into 11 million viewers. Thursday night's debate will have a higher audience than the FBN debate, but its ratings won't be anywhere near the astronomical ratings the first Fox News debate brought in, a stunning 24 million viewers. FBN's first debate had an overnight rating of 8.9 and averaged 13.5 million viewers. Thursday night's debate will probably slot in between the two FBN debates when the finals come in.

To be sure, even an audience in the 12- to 15-million range would be a big night for any network, and is incredible, historically, for a primary debate night. This entire cycle has seen debate ratings smash primary debate viewership records from prior cycles.

As for the other event of the night, Trump's rally, which was carried in part by CNN and MSNBC (neither outlet carried the entire event uninterrupted), the outlets' combined ratings were about a quarter of those for the debate, according to CNN. The rally also ran online, on smaller unrated cable channels like One America News, and on C-SPAN, which is not rated by Nielsen.

Full ratings will be available later today.