President Joe Biden's energetic State of the Union address on Thursday saw a substantial increase in viewership compared to last year's address.
Nielsen data showed that the average television audience across 14 networks that broadcast the event was 32.2 million viewers, an increase of 18% from the 27.3 million who watched it in 2023.
The figure fell short of Biden's most-watched State of the Union address in 2022, which averaged 38.2 million viewers.
The address to a joint session of Congress was highly anticipated as Biden, 81, has been plagued by questions about whether he is physically and cognitively prepared for another term. This fall he faces a tough re-election race against his predecessor and presumptive Republican nominee, former President Trump.
Biden appeared robust and combative throughout the speech, which lasted just over an hour. Even the president's critics said the performance would likely silence any calls to replace him atop the Democratic ticket.
Fox News had the most television viewers with an average of 5.8 million viewers between 9:15 and 10:45 pm ET. The figure increased 20% compared to last year's coverage on the network.
It was the third year in a row that Fox News had the largest audience for the annual address.
ABC came in second with 5.2 million viewers, followed by NBC (4.5 million), MSNBC (4.3 million), CBS (4.1 million), CNN (2.6 million), Fox Broadcast Network (1.8 million) and Fox Business Network (244,000). CNBC (112,000). The speech was also broadcast on NewsNation, Telemundo, Univision, PBS, Newsmax and CNN en Español.
The speech was likely watched by millions more people via online video streams.
Although no official third-party data is available, Fox News said it counted 1.6 million live streams across its digital properties during the speech. ABC News said viewership for its ABC News Live broadcast doubled from last year, but did not say how many people livestreamed the speech.
