Final 2020 debate draws over 55 million viewers, down from the 1st debate

It looks like the final 2020 debate match-up between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden didn't draw quite as big of a TV audience as the first one.

Preliminary numbers from Nielsen on Friday showed that Thursday's debate between Trump and Biden averaged 55.2 million viewers across six networks, CNN and The New York Times report. This, CNN notes, was down roughly 11 percent from the 62 million viewers who tuned in on those networks to the first debate last month.

Nielsen will provide updated figures later on Friday taking into account viewers on other channels. When those final figures from Nielsen were added for the first debate, the total came out to about 73 million viewers, which made it the third highest-rated general election debate Nielsen has recorded, the Times notes.

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The second debate between Trump and Biden was widely seen as more of a success than the first one, which was derailed by frequent interruptions from Trump. Thursday's debate was originally meant to be the third for the 2020 election, but a second was scrapped after Trump refused to particulate over plans to hold it virtually.