TV trumped by online for US Presidential debate
October 19, 2016
Ahead of the third and final US presidential debate tonight, Dror Ginzberg, Co-founder and CEO of Wochit, has outlined how online viewing of the debates has exceeded television broadcast and how engagement levels have exploded across all platforms during each Presidential debate to date.
Ginzberg said: “One of the most striking trends, as we head into the final Presidential debate before the election, is the large decline in people tuning in live to watch the action on TV.”
“An estimated 66.5 million tuned into to watch the second debate, across all major US networks, yet Youtube’s live stream had over 124 million views, including at one stage a peak of 1.5 million live viewers (five times higher than the 2012 debate).”
“One reason for this is undoubtedly the rapid rise in consumers’ adoption of online video which now accounts for over two-thirds of all internet traffic, and is expected to jump to an unprecedented 82% by 2020.”
“What has also really driven this trend has been the ease of options for viewing the debates now on offer to the public. From Snapchat’s live stories, to Facebook’s live stream, which had 7.4 million views for the second debate, and Twitter’s live coverage, which reached 3.2 million unique viewers, there’s never been an easier time to tune in to see a presidential debate. Such ease of access has also led to huge engagement levels and has allowed viewers to watch the debate in variety of ways and also share the experience with other viewers – whether that be by using Snapchat’s filters, or by live-tweeting the event, which marked the second debate as the most tweeted about political debate ever.”
“The public’s move away from traditional TV options, will only keep accelerating and the third debate will likely beat all previous records again for both viewers and also engagement levels.”
Wochit is a video creation platform empowering newsrooms, creators and brands to capture and expand audience attention through video.