Pittsburgh had highest viewership of Tuesday night's debate, according to early data
Published in Political News
Many Pittsburghers were no doubt interested in the first debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Early Nielsen rating data released by Michael Mulvihill, a television insight and analytics executive for Fox, suggests that Pittsburgh was the metropolitan area with the highest number of viewers watching ABC News' Tuesday evening debate on Sept. 10.
The Steel City received a Nielsen rating of 44.2, followed by Philadelphia, where the debate took place, at 43.4 and West Palm, Fla. at 43.3. In total, over 67 million people tuned in to the debate across 17 networks. That's 15 million more viewers who watched Tuesday's debate than the Biden-Trump debate in June. But, this data only accounts for television, not for potential viewers who watched via online streaming platforms.
This broadcast was the first time Harris and Trump had met face to face, and the first time the two candidates have debated following President Joe Biden's decision to exit the race and endorse the vice president.
Debate watch parties took place all over the city, including a Republican Watch Party on Mount Washington that gathered over 100 people, and a nonpartisan university watch party in Oakland that saw hundreds of Carnegie Mellon University students come to watch the event.
Persons aged 18-24 were the least likely to watch the debate, with a Nielsen rating of 9, and persons age 55 and older accounted for over half of the total TV viewers with a rating of 41.
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(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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