Updated at 5:20 p.m. to include additional viewership statistics.

WASHINGTON — The early numbers are in, and at least one big winner from debate night is clear: the TV networks.

The first presidential debate of 2016 received far higher ratings than the first debates of 2012 and 2008, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings data.

The debate averaged a total of 81.4 million viewers across 12 channels that carried it live, but those figures do not include PBS, which averaged 3 million viewers, or C-SPAN, which is not rated.

Even without those additional numbers, the Clinton-Trump matchup broke the previous viewership record of 81 million set in the sole debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter back in 1980. The first 2012 debate registered 67 million viewers.

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Ratings figures also do not measure people who watched the debate online, nor do they account for those who watched the debate in large groups, such as at bars or watch parties. Various live streams on YouTube collectively attracted more than 2.5 million simultaneous viewers, according to CNN.

The debate was carried on more than a dozen TV channels, with NBC coming out on top in early ratings, helped by having NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt as the debate moderator.

Early post-debate polls marked Hillary Clinton as a clear winner. In a CNN/ORC poll, 62 percent of debate watchers saw Clinton as the winner, while 27 percent thought Donald Trump had the better night — the widest margin in a CNN or Gallup post-debate poll since they began in 1984.

Public Policy Polling found a narrower margin but still had Clinton ahead, with 51 percent of respondents giving her the edge over Trump's 40 percent.

Clinton also performed strongly in several televised focus groups. In a focus group of undecided Pennsylvania voters led by GOP strategist Frank Luntz, 16 participants said they were persuaded to vote for Clinton while six said they were swayed towards Trump.

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Though pollsters caution against reading too much into figures immediately after debates, an analysis from FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver shows that these instant polls do tend to correlate with subsequent changes in the election horse-race polls.