Source: Andrew Harnik / Getty
Nobody tell President Donald Trump this — because God knows he’ll get his Tang-tinted Klan-derwear in a bunch over it — but it appears that not as many people tuned in to his inauguration this year as they did when he became president the first time, and his inauguration ratings fell well below that of former President Joe Biden.
From Deadline:
According to Nielsen on Tuesday, the inauguration drew 24.59 million viewers, compared to 33.76 million for Biden’s 2021 inauguration and 30.64 million for Trump’s first in 2021. The figures are across 15 networks and are an average from the 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m. ET time frame.
Viewership peaked in the 12:15 quarter hour, as Trump was giving his inaugural address.
According to Nielsen, 17.4 million viewers were aged 55 and above, 4.67 million were 35-54 and 1.43 million were 18-34.
During the Trump swearing-in ceremony and inaugural address, about 27.12 million viewers tuned in during the noon-12:45 p.m. ET time frame across the three major cable news networks and the three major broadcast networks, according to early data.
Nearly 40 million watched Biden’s swearing in and inaugural address four years ago on those six networks. In 2017, about 38.3 million watched Trump’s first inauguration.
So, just to recap: Fewer people tuned in to Trump’s inauguration than they did his first term. Fewer people watched both Trump inauguration in comparison to Biden’s ceremony, and despite reports that Trump’s popularity had improved among young people, the number of viewers who were over the age of 55 more than tripled that of all other age demographics combined. Again, if you don’t want your president to be up at 3 a.m., rage-tweeting from his “Truth” Social platform about how the “fake news” media rigged the ratings against him, just don’t show him these numbers.
Of course, it should surprise absolutely no one that largest number of viewers who did watch Trump’s inaugural ode to his own ego watched in on the president’s favorite right-wing propaganda mil, Fox News.
More from Deadline:
Fox News walloped the competition for Monday’s coverage, drawing 10.67 million, followed by ABC News with 4.85 million, NBC News with 4.58 million, CBS News with 4.35 million, CNN with 1.80 million and MSNBC with 880,000. In the 25-54 demo, Fox News drew 2.09 million, followed by NBC News with 1.22 million, ABC News with 1.12 million, CBS News with 966,000, CNN with 563,000 and MSNBC with 106,000.
Oh well, it looks like young people who like their news without the extra side of white nationalism and conservative demagoguing missed out on, well, a lot of white nationalism and conservative demagoguing.
Maybe there was just something better on TV — like literally everything.
See how social media is reacting to Trump’s TV ratings below.