President Joe Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) address drew an underwhelming response from television viewers, with figures released Wednesday showing the second smallest audience in at least 30 years took the time to watch.
An estimated 27.3 million people tuned in to the president across major broadcasters and cable news networks, down nearly 28 percent from the 38.2 million people who witnessed Biden’s speech in 2022, the Nielsen company said.
Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of viewers were 55 and older, Nielsen ratings data showed. Only five percent were young adults under age 35.
AP reports the only smaller audience since 1993 was the 26.9 million who watched Biden’s address to Congress in 2021 — not officially a State of the Union speech, since he had just taken office a few months earlier.
Watch below as Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla) gives his take on “boring Biden” State of the Union address:
The speech was carried live on 16 television networks.
Biden’s largest audience came on Fox News Channel, where the speech was seen by 4.69 million people, Nielsen said. ABC had 4.41 million viewers for Biden, NBC had 3.78 million, CBS had 3.64 million, MSNBC had 3.55 million, CNN had 2.4 million and the Fox broadcast network had 1.66 million.
As Breitbart News reported, Biden’s speech also received lower “very positive” ratings than his predecessors’ speeches — including former President Donald Trump’s.
According to CNN’s survey, 72 percent reported feeling at least somewhat positive about Biden’s speech, and of those, 38 percent felt “very” positive.
However, that is lower than the average for past presidents. Trump’s SOTU speech average, for example, saw 74 expressing a positive view, but of those, 54 percent felt “very” positive about it, compared to the 38 percent who said the same of Biden’s Tuesday speech.
Further the average of those who viewed former President Barack Obama’s SOTU speeches and former President George Bush’s speeches as “very” positive were 50 percent and 53 percent, respectively.
Additionally, an average of 54 percent viewed former President Bill Clinton’s SOTU speeches “very” positively as well.
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