Super Tuesday 2024 proved as predictable as expected. Sure, Nikki Haley captured Vermont in its Republican race. And, businessman Jason Palmer won in American Samoa for the Democrats by receiving 51 of the 91 total votes cast in that territory. Nonetheless, it all assured the rematch of 2020 between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, as each won all the remaining states’ available primaries of their respective political parties on Mar. 5
Also expected was that like the primary nights on TV in recent weeks, audiences were not as plentiful compared to recent presidential election years.
March 5th’s 10 PM Eastern hour featured the Big-3 broadcast networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – joining the cable news outlets in Super Tuesday coverage. Across seven networks, including Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and Newsmax, a combined 12.225 million watched results and analysis within that hour, according to Nielsen Media Research. This marked a 29-percent decline from the 6-network output (17.15 million; excluding Newsmax) of four years ago (Mar. 3, 2020), when then-candidate Biden began to build upon his victorious momentum over Bernie Sanders.
The decline was even more stark when factoring in the key 25-54 demographic. The combined demo rating from the Big-3 plus the three major cable news outlets was a 1.78 — 56 percent less than on Mar. 3, 2020, when the same six networks delivered a 4.06. (Note: a 1.0 rating in 25-54 equates to 1.21 million viewers within the aforementioned age range.)
Despite NBC (1.714 million) having the most potent 9 p.m. lead-in (The Voice, 3.954 million) for 10 p.m. Super Tuesday coverage, ABC (1.849 million) led the broadcast networks. CBS drew 1.5 million viewers.
Fox News (3.6 million; Super Tuesday’s most-watched outlet), MSNBC (2.045 million), and CNN (966,000) combined for 6.611 million viewers — down 33 percent from 2020 (9.84 million) and down 11 percent from 2016 (7.43 million for Hillary vs. Bernie, Trump vs. various GOPers) but up 19 percent from 2012 (5.545 million, Mitt Romney increased his lead in GOP).
