Debate viewers vs. Trump on X

Fox's Debate Ratings Disaster: 50% Drop Since 2016 Election

Fox News’ first Republican primary debate got a terrible response from American television viewers, with the broadcast losing about half the audience Fox’s kickoff debate had during the 2016 election.

The chairman of Fox, billionaire Rupert Murdoch, claimed in a 2021 email he was seeking to make Trump a "non-person." The reverse has happened since that decision as well as their decision to fire Tucker Carlson.

According to Nielsen, an estimated 12.8 million people watched Wednesday’s Republican debate.

But that’s a decline of almost 50% from the more than 24 million people who tuned in when Donald Trump appeared in his first presidential debate in August 2015, Nielsen reported.

The "Trump effect" was again witnessed in a January 2016 Republican primary debate hosted by Fox News that Trump also skipped — that debate also drew about 12.5 million people.

Trump said he boycotted the Republican debate this week for a number of reasons, including his large lead over other GOP rivals in the polls.

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, reported that Tucker Carlson's interview with Trump had 236.7 million views — a count of how many times someone scrolled by Carlson's interview with Trump in their feeds.

Newsmax