On Media Blog Archives Select Date… December, 2015 November, 2015 October, 2015 September, 2015 August, 2015 July, 2015 June, 2015 May, 2015 April, 2015 March, 2015 February, 2015 January, 2015

Trump listens while Hillary Clinton addresses the audience. In a conversation with reporters after the debate, Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton's press secretary, accused Trump of "menacingly stalking" Clinton on stage. | Brooks Kraft for Politico Magazine Second debate draws more than 63 million viewers, a one-third decline from the first

The second debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton brought in significantly lower ratings than their first match-up, according to early Nielsen data, averaging more than 63 million viewers across 10 broadcast and cable networks.

The first presidential debate this cycle averaged 84 million viewers across 13 channels, making it the most-watched presidential debate ever. Last night's debate competed with Sunday Night Football, which was airing on NBC.

On broadcast channels, CBS led the ratings with 16.5 million viewers. On cable, CNN led the pack with an average of 11.3 million viewers.

For both CNN and MSNBC, taken individually, the second presidential debate brought in higher ratings than the first presidential debate did.

CNN drew 11.2 million total viewers in the same time period, a 13 percent increase from the first debate. MSNBC drew its largest audience for a presidential debate ever, with 5.6 million total views between 9-10:45 p.m., according to Nielsen Fast Nationals data, 13 percent higher than the 4.9 million total viewers the network drew for the first presidential debate.

Fox News saw an average of 9.8 million viewers during the debate broadcast, a 17 percent drop from the 11.4 million it brought in during the first presidential debate but a 12 percent increase from its average viewership during the second presidential debate in 2008.

The early ratings results do not include the number of people who watched the debate on PBS or on non-rated channels like C-SPAN, and it does not account for the number of viewers who tuned in on Youtube or other sites online that live-streamed the debate.

