Trump Loses to Obama in Ratings (Again)

Donald Trump made his first address to the United States Congress on Tuesday night, and it drew a big audience. Before he claims that it was the biggest audience ever, though, you should know that TV ratings for the address, which was covered by most broadcast and cable news networks, were significantly lower than those for a comparable address given by Barack Obama in 2009.

Trump was widely praised for his speech, which he read from a teleprompter without digressing into any of his trademark rants.

Across all networks, the speech earned a 27.8 overnight rating. Total viewership numbers for the speech are not in yet, but they're likely to fall somewhere in the low 30-millions. That's well behind the 52.4 million that tuned in to Obama's first Congressional address, and even further behind the 62 million who watched George W. Bush's State of the Union address at the beginning of his Iraq war. And it's even further behind the 67 million who watched Bill Clinton's first address.

Trump is likely to say that his ratings beat those of Obama's final address, but that speech was the lowest-rated address since Nielsen began keeping track. However, early numbers would suggest that Trump's speech was one of the least-watched addresses ever and certainly one of the lowest-rated first addresses by a new president.