About 8.5 million viewers watched President Joe Biden’s highly anticipated interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday evening, in which the president tried to convince voters and fellow Democrats that he is still the best candidate to run for office for re-election against Donald Trump. .
The roughly 25-minute pre-recorded interview that aired Friday evening at 8 p.m. ET drew an average of 8.5 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings for the country’s largest markets. That’s a fraction of the 51 million viewers who saw Biden stumble during the June 27 live debate against former President Trump.
The half-hour program, billed as “ABC News Special: One on One With President Biden,” proved to be an excellent showcase for Stephanopoulos, who landed the interview earlier this week as Biden sought to do damage control from the disastrous debate. Stephanopoulos asked the 81-year-old president about the questions that have swirled since he declared his intention to run for re-election: Does he have the mental capacity and stamina for the job?
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The preliminary ratings report does not include streaming viewing or replays of the interview, which was made available for free on numerous digital platforms. By Friday night’s standards, the 8.048 million viewer turnout was large, but not nearly enough to change the what-now conversation surrounding Democrats and the party’s chances against Trump in November.
Most of the TV audience on Friday evening came from viewers over 55 years old. In the adults 25-54 demo, Biden drew about 900,000 viewers; among adults aged 18 to 49, he commanded about 580,000. In his 8 p.m. timeslot, Biden had a wide lead over Fox’s “WWE Smackdown” (2 million total viewers) and the CBS game show “Lingo” (2.1 million viewers).
The turnout of 8.5 million was strong enough to make “One on One” the most-watched ABC News primetime program in six years since Stephanopoulos sat down with embattled former FBI Director James Comey in April 2018.