Viewers also tuned into the three debates between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton en masse. According to Nielsen, the first debate in September 2016 generated an average audience of 84 million viewers across 13 networks. The two subsequent Trump-Clinton debates averaged 66.5 million viewers and 71.6 million viewers. In the first quarter of 2018, MSNBC was the second-most-watched cable network in both prime time and broadcast day. There are exceptions to the Trump bump in ratings, though.

Source: Forbes April 18, 2018 15:57 UTC