Fox News Kicks Off Debate Season With A Success

The first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential primary averaged 12.8 million viewers on the Fox News Channel Wednesday.

"The debate was the highest-rated non-sports cable telecast of the year in total viewers, overtaking Paramount’s Yellowstone (8.2 million P2+), with 11.1 million viewers and 2.4 million in A25-54, topping ABC, CBS, NBC combined and topping everything that aired on cable television," says the network.

Thursday's event outpaced more than 70 percent of all primary debates in 2016 and 2020.

The debate saw seven GOP candidates discuss topics ranging from the economy, war in Ukraine, transgender athletes, and even UFOs.

Participants included Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and Chris Christie.

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump did not participate in the debate, citing his large lead in the polls. Instead, Trump sat down with Tucker Carlson on X, formerly known as Twitter, for an interview that ran counter to the first hour of the debate.

Though it'd be fun to compare the two broadcasts, television viewership and social media viewership are not comparable. Those who compare the two are either uninformed or dishonest.

X counts any user who views a clip for at least two seconds as a “view." The platform also counts the same user each time they scroll past the video. If one user scrolls past a clip 15 times, they count as 15 views.

By contrast, Nielsen measures television ratings by the average viewership per minute of a broadcast. Meaning, the GOP debate averaged 12.8 million viewers per minute over the course of two hours.

According to Fox Sports EVP Michael Mulvihill, if TV used the same measuring process as X, the view count for the Fox News debate would sit at around 46 billion:

I discussed the differences between television and digital ratings with Will Cain on his podcast in July.

As for the candidates, the better-than-expected viewership suggests a greater interest in Trump's GOP challengers than the polls suggest.

According to FiveThirtyEight polling, Trump holds a 51 percent lead over the field. Gov. DeSantis is second at 14.8 percent. Ramaswamy rounds out the top three with 10.3 percent of the vote.

The odds say Trump is even larger of a favorite than the polls. The odds of Trump winning the general election in 2024 at +270. Ramaswamy is the second leading Republican candidate at +1150.

Debate winners

Several candidates had positive moments during the debate, with cases for the winner of the night.

DeSantis touted his inarguable success as Florida governor. And went mostly unscathed by the competition.

Ramaswamy was the most charismatic of the seven candidates. He also drew loud applause for being the only candidate to raise his hand in opposition to further funding for Ukraine.

There was no better line from the night than when Ramaswamy analogized why the country should prefer an outsider over another career politician:

"When you have a broken car, you don’t turn over the keys to the people who broke it."

That was true in 2016.

Then again, Ramaswamy did rip off Barack Obama's introduction from the 2004 Democratic National Convention: 

“Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name and what the heck is he doing in the middle of this debate stage?" opened Ramaswamy.

Even Chris Christie capitalized on Ramaswamy's cringe impersonation:

As first predicted, the press -- who do not represent the pulse of voters -- named Nikki Haley the biggest winner of the debate:

"Nikki Haley Is the Best Trump Alternative," wrote the New York Times.

"Nikki Haley Aims to Turn Her Debate Moment Into Momentum," read another Times headline.

"Nikki Haley framed her gender as an asset," argued Vox.

Overall, the debate provided voters a better glimpse into potential Trump alternatives. The event was well produced. Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum were pros and obvious upgrades over Chris Wallace.

Put simply, the debate was a success.

*OutKick and Fox News share common ownership.