NBC News Tops Ratings Board for Final 2012 Presidential Debate

By: Tyler Peterson Oct. 23, 2012

More Americans turned to NBC News for coverage and analysis of the final 2012 presidential debate than any other broadcast or cable television network. The NBC debate broadcast was number one across the board in total viewers and all key demos, averaging over 12.391 million total viewers and 5.840 million viewers aged 25-54.

NBC’s top-rated post-debate analysis -- led by Br Ian Williams with Tom Brokaw, David Gregory, Savannah Guthrie, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Kristen Welker, Peter Alexander, and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass -- delivered 9.327 million total viewers and 4.252 million viewers aged 25-54.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (9:00-10:34pm ET)
* NBC News’ coverage of the third and final Presidential Debate averaged 12.391 million total viewers, +6% (+661,000) more than ABC’s 11.730 million, and +47% (+3,954,000) more than CBS’s 8.437 million.
* In A18-49, NBC averaged a 4.4 rating, beating ABC by +38% (+1.2 rating points) and CBS by +76% (+1.9 points).
* In A25-54, NBC averaged a 4.9 rating, +32% (+1.2 rating points) ahead of ABC and +63% (+1.9 points) ahead of CBS.

POST-DEBATE ANALYSIS (10:34-11:00pm ET)
* NBC’s post-analysis coverage averaged 9.327 million total viewers, +16% (+1,275,000) more than ABC’s 8.052 million and +51% (+3,160,000) ahead of CBS’ 6.167 million.
* In A18-49, NBC averaged a 3.2 rating, +52% (+1.1 rating points) more than ABC and +78% (+1.4 points) more than CBS.
* In A25-54, NBC delivered a 3.6 rating, +38% (+1 rating point) ahead of ABC and +57% (+1.3 points) ahead of CBS.
* Versus the rated analysis during the third 2008 Presidential debate (Wed 10/15/08), NBC was up +3% (+235,000) in total viewers, +3% (+1 tenth) in rating A18-49 and flat in rating A25-54.