Big Yawn.

Democrats lost 43% of their audience last night compared to their first debate.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

The news network’s coverage of the 10 candidates slides by more than 40 percent over the first debate of the primary cycle in late June.

The second Democratic presidential primary debate didn’t draw nearly as big an audience as the first.

CNN’s coverage of Tuesday’s debate — the first of two, featuring 10 candidates each night — drew 8.69 million viewers (including CNN en Español). That’s down a sizable 43 percent from the opening debate on June 26, though it’s not an entirely apples-to-apples comparison, since the latter aired across three networks: NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo. CNN’s audience Tuesday is a tick higher than NBC’s share (8.68 million) of the June 26 total.