The Republican National Convention clearly reached its crescendo on Thursday night. The four-day run-up until Donald Trump’s accepting of the nomination, while giving a strong ratings performance, did not bring any atypical highs for the political meetup. Trump’s speech didn’t change that narrative by much.
With all three broadcast networks and cable news networks now tallied for the 10 p.m. hour, it appears just over 31.5 million viewers tuned into Trump’s extended time on stage.
On the broadcast networks alone Thursday night, Trump’s time on the stage brought in 12.3 million viewers to the 10 o'clock hour. NBC News led its fourth and final night of primetime coverage with an average 4.6 million viewers tuning in, per Nielsen Media’s Fast Affiliate ratings. ABC News, which preciously topped CBS on Monday, averaged 3.9 million viewers. CBS News took 3.8 million viewers. Spanish-language net Univision contributed another 1.4 million viewers. (Trump’s speech ran long, so adjustments to the broadcast numbers may be significant.)