President Biden’s Press Conference Attracted 24.2 Million Viewers on Thursday, According to Nielsen

Around 24.2 million people watched President Joe Biden‘s news conference at NATO Summit on Thursday, according to Nielsen data. That’s up from the 20.3 million people who watched President Biden address the nation on October 19 in regards to the Israel and Ukraine wars, and it’s hovering in State of the Union address territory, as interest continues to be pronounced when it comes to President Biden’s physical state and performance.

Nielsen didn’t break out the ratings by network, but did aggregate viewership on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Univision, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, all of which carried the press conference live from approximately 7:30 p.m. ET to 8:30 p.m. ET. Most of that viewership was in the 55+ demo, where 19.2 million viewers watched live. Among adults 18-34, the number was just over 1 million, while it was 3.6 million with adults 35 to 54.

According to Fox News, it led with 5.67 million viewers, followed by ABC (4.97 million), CBS (3.60 million), NBC (3.55 million), MSNBC (2.52 million) and CNN (2.22 million).

In adults 25-54, ABC was tops with 879,000, then Fox News (835,000), CBS (611,000), NBC (592,000), CNN (439,000) and MSNBC (319,000).

In comparison, about 8.5 million viewers tuned in last Friday night to President Biden’s heavily-hyped interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

And on June 27, the Biden-Trump presidential debate that started the media frenzy over Biden’s lackluster performance, averaged 51.3 million viewers, across 17 networks.

But presidential press conferences rarely reach mega-ratings. A good comparison might be the annual State of the Union address, which this year averaged 32.2 million people. That was up from 2023’s 27.3 million and 2021’s 26.9 million viewers. In 2022, about 38.2 million watched Biden’s State of the Union — just days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Here’s the data from Thursday’s address: