NEW YORK – An estimated 26.9 million people watched President Joe Biden's first address to Congress across 16 television networks, the smallest audience for the yearly presidential speech since at least 1993.
The previous low was the 31.3 million who watched President Barack Obama's final State of the Union address in 2016, the Nielsen company said on Thursday.
Nielsen didn't have measurements before 1993. Biden's audience compares to the 37.2 million viewers former President Donald Trump had for his State of the Union address last year.
Trump's first speech to a joint session of Congress shortly after taking office in 2017 was seen by 47.7 million people. A long-term decline in television ratings has accelerated during the pandemic, due to