TV Viewership Falls for GOP Convention

Viewership for the Republican National Convention plunged sharply on its second night compared with the same evening of 2008, when Sarah Palin made her debut as the vice presidential nominee.

An average of 21.9 million viewers tuned into the nine broadcast and cable networks that broadcast convention proceedings Wednesday between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., when vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan spoke, according to Nielsen. That was 41% less than the 37.2 million who tuned in the same night four years ago, the research firm said. The largest audience was tuned to Fox News, which averaged 7.7 million viewers, down 15% from nine million in 2008, according to Nielsen data provided by Fox. Fox, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp. Among broadcast networks, CBS averaged 2.4 million viewers compared with 4.9 million in 2008. ABC's viewership fell to 2.8 million from 5.9 million. NBC's audience also fell. CNN had the steepest drop of major networks, with 1.3 million viewers vs. 6.1 million four years ago.