On Monday night, the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago with an impressive viewership of over 20 million, surpassing the Republican National Convention's first night viewership last month. The opening night of the DNC featured notable speeches from prominent figures such as Hillary Clinton, first lady Jill Biden, and President Joe Biden.
Nielsen reported that the DNC's opening night drew an average of 20.03 million viewers across 13 television networks from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. ET. President Biden's speech, which began just before 11:30 p.m. ET, attracted approximately 19.1 million viewers.
Among the viewers on Monday night, MSNBC led the pack with 4.6 million viewers, followed by another network with 3.4 million, ABC with 2.8 million, Fox News with 2.5 million, CBS with 2.1 million, and NBC with 1.9 million. MSNBC celebrated this viewership as their most-watched first night of a DNC ever. Additionally, another network drew the largest television audience in the advertiser-coveted 25-54 age demographic with 902,000 viewers.
This year's DNC viewership exceeded the first night of the party's 2020 convention, which had 19.7 million viewers tuning in. However, it fell short of the 2016 convention when 26 million viewers watched the event.
