Donald Trump‘s second inauguration as president wasn’t as widely viewed as his first, keeping with a historical pattern for second-term presidents.
Early figures from Nielsen show Trump’s swearing in as the 47th president of the United States averaged 26.05 million viewers from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. ET Monday on broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC and the three largest cable news channels (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC). That looks to be down a good amount from each of the previous two inauguration ceremonies, though the comparisons aren’t exact.
In 2021, 39.87 million people watched Joe Biden take the oath of office on those six networks, while Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 averaged 38.35 million viewers. In both of those cases, however, the audience was measured from 11:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. ET, just before and after the oath of office. A breakdown of that half hour for Monday’s ceremony wasn’t immediately available, though it’s unlikely Monday’s audience spiked enough during that time to come close to the 2017 or 2021 number.
Fox News drew the most viewers by far for the 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. window, averaging 10.3 million viewers and peaking with 10.59 million from noon to 1 p.m. It was the second-largest inauguration audience ever for the network, behind only Trump’s first swearing in in 2017. The broadcast networks were pretty tightly bunched, with ABC averaging 4.7 million viewers from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. and NBC (4.4 million) and CBS (4.1 million) close behind. CNN (1.7 million) and MSNBC (848,000) lagged considerably.
Though Trump’s return to office is unusual in that he won a second term after losing to Biden in 2020, the pattern of a smaller audience for his second inauguration is not. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all had significantly smaller audiences for the inaugurations beginning their second terms than when they first entered the White House.
Fox News’ lead among cable news outlets continued into primetime, where it averaged 6.1 million viewers to 1.1 million for MSNBC and 1 million for CNN. ABC and CBS aired one-hour specials on the inauguration at 10 p.m., while NBC stuck with entertainment programming. Full ratings for Monday night, including those for the College Football Playoff title game on ESPN, will be released later in the week.
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