Donald Trump’s very first Oval Office address last night (Jan. 8) didn’t attract as many television viewers as a rebuttal from his Democratic opponents in Congress, Deadline Hollywood reports.
Trump, who spoke for about nine minutes in the 9:00pm to 9:15pm ET slot, earned a Nielsen rating of 28.1/45, while House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who spoke in the 9:15 to 9:30 ET slot, earned 29.3/47, Deadline said. Nielsen’s metered results rely on a small pool of US households, and track their viewing of CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, and MSNBC.
Nielsen estimates there are 119.6 television-viewing households in America, and the first number in those ratios represents a percentage of the viewing audience. Trump’s rating extrapolates into about 40 million households for his address, Deadline Hollywood said. Nielsen’s calculations also take into consideration viewership online and on apps.
The White House YouTube channel of Trump’s speech had about 83,000 viewers as of 7pm ET today (Jan. 9). While Trump, Pelosi, and Schumer were speaking, Stormy Daniels, the adult film producer who claims Trump’s lawyer paid her before the 2016 election to keep quiet about an affair, broadcast herself folding laundry from Instagram. She got about 100,000 viewers, she said.