UPDATE, 3:10 PM: The first State of the Union of President Obama’s second term last night was watched by 33.5 million viewers. That’s down 11.3% from the 37.75 million who tuned in for last year’s address across 14 broadcast and cable networks. It’s also a State of the Union low for Obama, who has seen a decline every year since his first official SOTU in 2010 was watched by 48 million. It is not an all-time low since Nielsen started tracking SOTUs in 1993; that goes to Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union when the he was in the last year of his administration — that speech got just 31.478 million. This year’s speech was live from around 9-10:15 PM ET on 15 networks and tape-delayed on Univision. NBC was tops among broadcast networks with 6.469 million total viewers, just ahead of the 6.4 million CBS pulled in. With 3.683 million watching, Fox News Channel was No. 1 among cable news’ coverage of last night’s speech. However, CNN won in the key adults 25-54 demographic with 1.436 million. Fox News’ total viewership dipped 3% from last year. Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Azteca, Univision, MundoFox, CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Current, Centric and Galavision all carried the speech live last night.
Related: Networks Juggle State Of The Union & Cop Killer Standoff — But No Split Screen
PREVIOUSLY, 8:42 AM: As usual, all the networks aired President Obama’s annual State of the Union address live. In fast nationals, the first speech of Obama’s second term before a joint session of Congress continued the downward trend of the past few years — from the high of his first official State of the Union in 2010. Additionally, last night’s SOTU was down double digits on all the networks from Obama’s January 24, 2012 speech. In preliminary numbers, CBS was the most-watched network for the one-hour-plus speech and coverage with 6.22 million viewers. NBC was next with 5.79 million, followed by ABC with 4.59 million and Fox with 2.37 million. Among adults 18-49, NBC was number one but everyone dropped from last year. In the demo, Fox took the biggest drop from the 2012 speech; the network’s coverage last night posted a 0.9/2, down 47% from last year. Tuesday’s CBS News Special (1.1/3) was down 27% from 2012, with the NBC News Special (1.6/4) down 20% and the ABC News Special (1.2/3) down 14%. Last year’s State of the Union had a total audience of 37.75 million across 14 broadcast and cable networks. That was down from the 42.79 million who watched in 2011 and 48 million in 2010. Because the State of the Union was broadcast live, fast nationals will likely change in the final numbers. Time-adjusted ratings for the speech will be available later today and we will update when we have them. Cable news numbers are expected later this morning.
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.


At last, some relevant, comparable statistics on the event, as opposed to pundits spouting, political hacks positioning, or ninnified social media metrics tracking.
Do ratings really matter, as there’s no advertising, everyone is showing the same speech, so who cares?
Sure they do. They tell us the truth about his support, especially if you factor in the fact that a percentage of people who didn’t support him tuned in to hear what he said as well, unless it’s similar to vote counting in Philadelphia, in that case, it was 100% supporters of Obama watching.
Either way, it’s a more accurate count of who is still buying this guy’s BS than the vote count of last November.
Then those people missed one incredible speech!
what was incredible about it…It is a State of the Union speech, not a campaign speech. The President is supposed to lay the facts of the current state of our country. He could have summed it up with a tweet instead of an hour of air time…. My fellow Americans, the State of the union is “We are screwed”
Any Obama speech is a campaign speech.
Did you see the speech Dr. Ben Carson gave at the Prayer Breakfast last Friday? You can catch it on Youtube. How about Marco Rubio’s speech last night??? again catch that on Youtube. Rand Paul also spoke in rebuttle to the Prez…. once again Youtube. Watch those three and then we will talk about great speeches.
I didn’t watch it, but I can guess.
Put aside differences and work together? Still a lot of work to do? Guns are bad? Conservatives are bad? Crackers still need to pay their fair share?
I’m guessing I hit about 75-85% of the speech right there.
Very Good Guess.
Who cares what any of the politicians say? It’s what they do to us that devastatingly counts. Frankly, I think both Obama and Biden are insufferably stupid. I have a really difficult time believing that they’re Pres and Vice Pres.
Yes indeed! Incredibly self-righteous, Incredibly narcissistic, and Incredibly egotistical. Blaming Republicans for his failed policies is an exercise in predictability, and ultimately, failure.
Incredible? hahahahaha what the hell r u smoking?
Everything with Obama’s been down, even the economy.
Except for unemployment, gas prices, food prices, taxes…
Oops. Read that wrong. You couldn’t be more right.
Very true, and I’m adding credibility (for MOST Americans)
More like State of Disunion. US is at least two cultures masquerading as one.
Personally I watch the LAPD manhunt on Christoper Dorner I think I not only SO CAL resident who did miss the PResident speech
I missed new episodes on “NCIS” and “NCIS: L.A.” because of that Obama sit-com.
Why would I watch a group of idiots congratulate themselves and pat each other on the back for ruining this once great nation?
Are you kidding me?
The figures are probably more than 11%, one person called it a sit-com. I call it a sit-com/tragedy. I chose not to watch.
ain’t nobody got time for that!
Viewership was down because anyone with a lick of sense knew that the speech would be a replay of previous SOTU speeches. And they were right.
He believes in “recycling.”
I watched reruns of “Gilligan’s’ Island” on TV Land , Very informative.
Down only 11%.
Viewership was down because more and more people realize Obama and the left are full of crap and their words and promises are outright lies. The left still hangs on every word like.children but they’re just lapdogs and have no credibility.
The animal makes me sick when it speaks.
It upsets my wife when I scream at the animal
about it’s lies, and its’ inability to function at
a level higher than a Badger.
So I don’t watch. Putin would be better for America
than the animal.
This must end; if America is to survive. An inept leader surrounded by even more inept/lazy followers does not make for a super turnaround. I would have never believed this possible just 20 years ago. I laughed at the warnings from the old hardline Goldwateresque people. I wish I had an answer, or even a positive thought … but I don’t. I stand willing to give an extra 15% of my income back to the government if every American does the same. Maybe that would be a productive start, if all fully participated. I mean this for all Senators, Congressmen/Congresswomen, Social Security recipients, disability recipients, welfare recipients, and food stamp recipients.
If we all did this, it might make a difference when coupled with some other spending cuts.
Because anyone with an IQ above room temperature would rather poke their eye out than have to watch that idiotic kabuki dance.
Why would anyone watch? No one trusts Congress (12% positive), and certainly no one trusts this President (approval of policies 38%). Go figure.
If you saw a boring, untrue documentary last year and the year before, would you sit down for an hour and watch it again? Obama knows he’s lying through his teeth, but as long as the American people affirm him on every issue, he can continue to pedal the same garbage with no fear of failure. I think I already know what next year’s SOTU speech will be like!
The man is a disgusting, shallow, two bit phony and without a compliant Leftist news-media to lick his boots and hide his incompetence he wouldn’t even be there. His speech just a cut and paste job of all his other disingenuous speeches.
The 11% are the American People that can no longer afford television/Cable??????..Thanks Mr. President!
we were all busy watching dorner.
What state of the union? Change the name to “State of the weakest Link”
Doornoon was more popular than the state of the gaffe! At least he had actionable motives……
State of the Union was about as interesting as watching Lincoln for the first time. Both like viewing a blade of grass grow. We are a third world joke headed by the greatest collection of political hack dregs ever assembled. Washington has become Hollywood. Only in Washington people are paid well, while in Los Angeles the unions mean nothing and the “industry” is heading south. I am just waiting for China to buy LA, so we are just not limited to having them own the Chinese Theatre.
I certainly didn’t watch it. I learned 4 years ago that you don’t listen to what Obama says. You watch what he does.
I started out watching the doorknob on my bedroom door. That got a little boring so then I went outside and watched the grass grow. Then I finally turned on the tv and tuned in to the Sorry State of our Union Rehash.
I immediately went back to watching the doorknob.