Over 25 million people tuned in to watch Trump's RNC speech

This year's Republican National Convention (RNC) drew an average of around 19 million viewers per night, according to Nielsen data. This marks a slight increase from 2020 but is down roughly 22% from the 2016 convention.

Former President Donald Trump’s speech on Thursday, his first public appearance since a recent assassination attempt, attracted more viewers than his 2020 RNC address but fell short of his 2016 viewership numbers. The final night of the convention saw a peak of 28.4 million viewers between 10:45 and 11:00 p.m. ET when Trump recounted the attack on him.

Data suggests people tuned out as Trump's speech continued 

Despite the impressive numbers, interest waned later in the evening as Trump's lengthy speech— the longest presidential acceptance speech in U.S. history— continued.

Fox News led in viewership across all cable and broadcast channels during the convention, setting a record for the most viewers on a single cable channel in one hour. On Thursday, 10.4 million people tuned in to Fox News during the 10:00 p.m. ET hour. In comparison, CNN and MSNBC attracted about 2 million and 1.2 million viewers, respectively, during the same time.

Here is what you need to know

Overall, Nielsen’s data indicates that the average viewer over the four nights was over 55 years old. It's worth noting that while Nielsen includes live TV streaming data, it does not account for viewership on smaller devices or through social media clips.

A sizable chunk of the American population must have watched snippets of the speech on different social media platforms.