#RNC and DNC 2020 TV ratings plunge from 2016 spectaculars amid pandemic

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President Trump speaks during the first day of the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Ratings for the first night of the 2020 Republican National Convention trailed the Democrats’ opening festivities — with far less people tuning into both virtual celebrations overall compared to the in-person, high-energy extravaganzas of 2016.

Networks CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN averaged 15.9 million viewers on Monday during the overlapping hour of GOP kickoff coverage beginning at 10 p.m., according to Nielsen figures published by the Los Angeles Times.

That figure was 17 percent higher for night one of the Democratic National Convention, which drew in 18.7 million people on those channels.

Fox News was by far the most watched cable channel on Monday evening, pulling in 7 million viewers for Republicans and besting liberal rivals CNN, ABC and NBC, which followed with 2 million, 1.9 million and 1.7 million, respectively.

But both of those overall figures represent a big plunge in the ratings from the opening nights of 2016, when thousands of delegates packed into convention halls in Philadelphia and Cleveland to crown Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton their parties’ nominees.

Network viewership of the opening Democratic convention festivities plunged 28 percent from 2016, with less people interested in the pre-taped and low-energy speeches from people’s homes.

According to Nielsen, the audience for the Republicans on the first night of their celebration also fell 28 percent from 2016.

It’s unclear how much online streaming and mobile devices affected those numbers as TV viewing habits change and are not factored into traditional ratings.

On C-SPAN’s livestream, the number of people watching Monday night’s GOP bash was six times higher than the viewership for Democrats.