With most ratings in across networks, the DNC finale is still in a tight match with Donald Trump's showing the week before.
Two solid-ish weeks of political conventions culminated in Thursday's final outing for the Democrats. Hillary Clinton capped off the fourth night of the DNC with a history-making acceptance of her party's nomination during an address to the Philadelphia crowd — and a TV audience likely as large as Donald Trump's seven day earlier.
CNN again led the pack with 7.5 million viewers during the speech's time period. MSNBC followed 5.3 million viewers, with broadcast sister network NBC News just behind with 4.5 million viewers. (That makes for the eighth night of convention coverage in which the network topped its broadcast competition.) ABC News follows with 3.9 million, with CBS pacing third with 3.7 million. Fox News Channel grabbed 3 million viewers. An additional 1.5 million viewers came from Spanish-language net Univision. That total is slightly shy of what Donald Trump pulled during the RNC finale last week, though the Democrats have been seeing more sizeable boosts from PBS.
But this has been a cable news convention cycle. CNN has handily topped every night of DNC overage, while Fox News outpaced the pack in RNC ratings. The two networks, along with NBC News, leave these two weeks with the most bragging right.
2016 Convention Audiences
The below numbers reflect Nielsen sums of broadcast and cable coverage — as well as PBS stations.
DNC
Day 1 — 28.4 million
Day 2 — 28 million
Day 3 — 27 million
Day 4 — TBD
RNC
Day 1 — 23 million
Day 2 — 23 million
Day 3 — 19.8 million
Day 4 — 32 million