TV networks and advertisers are hoping for record-breaking viewership during Monday night's first presidential debate. While President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney garnered 67 million pairs of eyes during the first debate of the 2012 cycle, experts are predicting that the fervor over the competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could draw even more people than ever before. To put the excitement over this cycle in perspective, Fox News has already set the all-time record for the highest-rated non-sports program on basic cable, when last August 24 million viewers tuned in for the first Republican debate.
The presidential debates don't have commercial breaks, but with the first debate being aired on CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, Fox, CSPAN, and CNN, each network can choose its own pre- and post-debate coverage. That means advertisers are scrambling to fill the spots before and after the debate. And while the $200,000 to $225,000 price tag for a 30-second spot on CBS might sound like quite the chunk of change, Super Bowl ads run well into the millions (and Super Bowl 50 was watched last year by 111.9 million people).
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