Entertainment

Donald Trump's presidential inauguration TV ratings fail to come up trumps

While no final figure has been announced, pictures circulating on social media seem to confirm fewer people attended the inauguration of America's 45th president Donald Trump than that of his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Trump, a self-styled reality television icon, must now contend with an additional humiliation: fewer people watched on television too.

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Overnight data from the US audience measurement agency Nielsen reports the inauguration drew a 27.7 "rating".

That represents a drop of roughly 25 per cent.

The data was compiled from a total of 12 channels which covered the inauguration live.

Trump's audience in total numbers was 30.6 million viewers.

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The channels which were included in the survey data were the commercial networks ABC, CBS and NBC, and the cable channels CNN, Fox News, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Galavision, HLN, and MSNBC.

It compares to a 37.2 overnight "rating" for the 2009 first term inauguration of former president Barack Obama.

Obama's 2009 rating ended up roughly measuring up to 37.8 million television viewers.

Obama's second inauguration drew a smaller audience - a trend consistent with second term presidents in the television era - with just 20.6 million viewers. 

Nielsen reported NBC was the most watched commercial network and Fox News was the most watched cable news channel; those rankings roughly correlate with TV coverage of the US presidential debates last year.

The data points to an illuminating trend: that on television, an environment where Trump and his transition team would contend he is comfortably dominant, his performance is in decline.

The best performing Republican president in recent times was actor-turned-politician Ronald Reagan, a career shift which perhaps makes him the best comparison versus Trump.

Reagan's inauguration drew 41.8 million viewers.

More recent presidential inaugurations have drawn smaller audiences: 23.3 million for George H. W. Bush in 1989, 29.7 million for Bill Clinton in 1993 and 29 million for George W. Bush in 2001.