Nielsen’s figure only captures television viewership, leaving out what could have been millions of additional viewers streaming the debate on their phones or laptops. It also didn’t count YouTube or Twitch creators who streamed the debate and provided live commentary for their audiences.
But that doesn’t change the fact that in the last election cycle, CNN achieved record prime-time viewership, with almost 2 million viewers on average in 2020; that number dropped to nearly 500,000 this week. Compare that to Trump’s recent appearance on impulsivea podcast hosted by influencer-turned-pro wrestler Logan Paul: On YouTube, that conversation has received almost 5 million visitsand Trump’s video announcing that interview has More than 120 million views on TikTokEarlier this month, Trump attended an interview with Dr. Phil that reached more than 5 million viewers on X. (Those are X numbers, though, so take them with a grain of salt.)
Even as Biden and Trump have reportedly been sharpening your debate skills Over the past few weeks, their teams are strategizing how to handle any online consequences. Over the past week, Trump’s allies have been priming his base for outrage online, criticizing CNN moderators and challenging Biden to take a drug test. After facing a week of cheap falsifications, the Biden campaign is preparing to fact-check its opponent in real time and before any false or misleading information takes off in the less savory corners of the Internet.
“Our campaign will have a robust rapid response operation across all platforms,” a Biden campaign official told me on Monday.
CNN is distributing its feed to major media outlets and will stream it for free from its website and YouTube account, but the network has strongly warned creators not to stream the debate on their own. Since CNN has exclusive rights to the feed, it can prohibit potential commentators from using its feeds.
“The CNN Presidential Debate will stream live with no log-in required on cable on CNN.com and CNN’s YouTube channel and will be widely available across both digital offerings, plus television and streaming distribution Max . “It is a CNN-exclusive event and cannot be distributed or manipulated,” Emiy Kuhn, CNN senior vice president of communications, said in a statement to WIRED on Tuesday.
In years past, streamers like Saagar Enjeti, co-host of the Breaking points podcast, said that broadcasting his own comments through the feed was not a problem.
“I’m going to relax. CNN already said it Breaking points “Fuck you, so I take this as confirmation that they are unfortunately out for blood,” Trihex, a Twitch streamer and political activist, told me via direct message on Wednesday. “It may be less risky the next day, but the live reaction is a nuclear risk right now.”
“YouTube works hard to balance the rights of copyright holders and the creative activities of our community, but we do not mediate copyright claims or decide who owns the rights to content,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement to WIRED on Wednesday.