President Trump’s Monday night address on Afghanistan garnered approximately 27.7 viewers, Nielsen Media Research said.
As far as Afghanistan speeches go, that didn’t set a record.
President Obama attracted 40 million viewers to their televisions for a speech on Afghanistan during his first year in office, in December 2009, the Hill newspaper pointed out.
President Trump’s (left) Monday night speech on Afghanistan may have brought in 27.7 million viewers, but he was bested by President Obama’s (right) speech on the topic in 2009
For cable news channels and broadcast networks, respectively, Monday night’s ratings winners were Fox News Channel and NBC
Part of the 12 million person difference may have been, however, because of the time of year
While August days are long and sunny, there are generally more TV watchers in December because the days are short and cold, the Hill noted.
During Obama’s 33-minute address, the Democratic president offered 30,000 more American troops to help the cause, though said he planned to bring U.S. forces home by mid-2011.
He called the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda across the border in Pakistan a continued ‘cancer’ on the region, while trying to convince Americans they were a direct threat to the United States.
It took until mid-2011 to root out terrorist and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was indeed hiding just across the border in nearby Pakisan.
And, of course, American soldiers never fully pulled out.
Like his predecessor, Trump also pledged that the war wouldn’t be open-ended in the address that he gave last night.
He also didn’t offer specifics, like how many soldiers he planned to send into the theater, explaining it would depend on the scenario on the ground.
On cable for Trump’s speech, Fox News performed best, with garnering 4.72 million viewers.
Fox was followed by MSNBC with 2.9 million and CNN with 2.5 million.
On broadcast, NBC won the network wars, receiving 6.18 million viewers, compared with ABC’s 5.01 million, CBS’s 4.24 million and Fox affiliates bringing in 2.3 million, Nielsen said.