More Than 475,000 Midstate Homes Tuned in to Presidential Debate

NASHVILLE, TN — The first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Monday night was watched in nearly a half million Midstate homes.

WTVF Channel 5 programming and research director Mark Binda told The Tennessean that, when combining overnight ratings from ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, CNN, CNBC, CSPAN, Fox News and MSNBC, the debate scored a 47 rating and a 63 share. That means, on average, 47 percent of homes were watching the debate and 63 percent of homes watching TV had Clinton and Trump tuned in. The figure excludes people watching on other stations or via streaming services.

Binda said the most recent Super Bowl had a 58.1 rating and a 75 share.

Those combined figures translate in 475,000 homes watching the debate, Binda told the newspaper, in an area that stretches nearly to the Alabama border and into parts of southern Kentucky.

An assessment of the overnight ratings projected 80 million viewers. Those estimates also included viewers on Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons