The United States presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on September 10 expectedly raised a storm, with broadcasting platforms abuzz with chat about the two. Both candidates looked to pick apart the others' failings over around two and a half hours of verbal sparring, helping attract a sizeable global audience that helped one platform create a record and making it one of 2024's most popular live-streaming events.
The debate between the two politicians saw the two accuse each other of fuelling division in America and discuss other contentious issues, including migration, fracking, the Ukraine war, and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. While most onlookers agreed that Harris managed to gain the upper hand heading out of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, it remains a long road for both combatants ahead of the elections on November 5, 2024.
Their debate did see viewership soar across the board as channels covering them zoomed to the top of the rankings tables. Overall, the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump registered an impressive 17.3M Hours Watched, putting it ahead of other prominent live-streaming events this year, including the Apple Event 2024, LCS Summer 2024, and the CDL 24 Playoffs. Such a result is proof that the American political landscape remains a hot topic worldwide and that the label that the upcoming election has been given — one of the most important in the country's history — is not that far-fetched.
The presidential debate also recorded around 7.98M Peak viewers across platforms, with YouTube and Rumble being the major contributors. This helped it surpass some of the year's most popular live-streamed events like the abovementioned Apple event and the VCT 2024: Masters Madrid. It also went past ibai's highly successful La Velada del Año IV, which is no mean feat given the event's importance and status as one of the most anticipated annual events in the online community.
While interest within the United States was as high as expected, the likes of Canada and Brazil also ensured to cover the debate quite extensively. That is why channels from these two countries numbered the most (after America) when looking at the overall coverage, with the South American nation also coming second by contribution to the overall watch time.
Those watching the presidential debate also saw a pattern emerge throughout, with Harris provoking her rival and forcing him to make extended defenses of his past conduct and comments. This made many feel that the current vice president of the country took home the advantage, with Trump failing to use his strengths or hold his opponent accountable for many of the foibles of the Biden administration, which has many citizens disgruntled.
As a result, the two candidates got a lot of traction on Twitch chat, with viewers who tuned in to catch them verbally spar on their favorite streamers' channels having lots to say about them. There was a lot of talk about them leading up to the debate as well, meaning that in total, the duo received 178.5K mentions between September 1 and 10, with the day of their head-to-head bringing around 52% of this figure.
Trump accounted for a majority of these mentions, showing that while he has been beset by recent controversies and court appearances, his popularity with the public remains high. Things getting so tense on Tuesday night's presidential debate stage between the two adversaries in Philadelphia only added to the discussions among online spectators. The anticipation for a second debate, set for sometime before November, only added to the buzz among US citizens.
Rumble benefitted the most from this almost year-long fight to be the next President of the United States of America. The live-streaming service had broken its record for peak concurrent viewership in June during the first debate between the then-two contenders for the coveted seat: Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joseph Biden.
However, with the incumbent POTUS withdrawing after a shocking performance, Vice President Kamala Harris took over the reins almost immediately. Her first head-to-head with Trump came on September 10, with the live broadcasts of this debate once again sending Rumble to record-setting territory.
The green platform saw 1.04M Peak Viewers turn up during this debate, with many top channels covering the proceedings. This means that it continues to close the gap with Kick in terms of maximum concurrent viewership, with the Stake-owned service setting a record of 1.14M PV in June during the Kings World Cup 2024, a media football tournament.
With political sentiments and discourse in America seeing a huge wedge between the left and right wings, Rumble has been the biggest beneficiary of the simmering tensions between the two parties. It has taken advantage of the growth in the number of political talk shows that mostly cater to the Republican Party audience in the USA and supporters of Donald Trump by giving them a haven to share their thoughts and opinions on all kinds of matters.
This has in turn helped the platform stay relevant and find a niche space for itself in the live-streaming community even as the competition for space in an increasingly crowded market grows. With huge names like Daniel Bongino and Steven Crowder now calling it home, Rumble has slowly been able to grow its audience reach by mostly putting out political and religious content.
Both American influencers got personal channel records for peak concurrent viewership as a result of covering the debate while also entering the all-time top ten for channels on the live-streaming service. While conservative political commentator and radio show host Bongino reached 349,000 Peak Viewers, Crowder — a conservative political commentator and media host — registered 222,000 concurrent spectators.
When moving away from Rumble, we see that many top American media companies chose to live-stream the presidential debate, with host ABC News hitting a huge 2.38M PV. It turned out to be a massive success for the US-based company, with the above figure being a peak online viewership record while the 1.27M Average Viewers that the broadcast hit far outweighing any other stream on its official channel.
The official broadcast on ABC News also ended as one five most popular events to be live broadcast across services this year.
Other prominent broadcast news outlets that covered the debate were NBC News, Wall Street Journal, FOX News, and CNN. Their in-depth followings of events ensured that the first face-off between Harris and Trump took over live streaming, with official YouTube channels dominating the top five list of most popular streams between September 5 and 11.
Overall, the first joust between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was met with the appropriate reaction by fans, viewers, and critics the world over. Their debate attracted enough attention to make it a must-see event, as seen in the viewership figures of YouTube and Rumble. The latter platform, especially, continues to thrive on the news and hype within the political sphere, and it wouldn't be surprising if it achieves more landmark numbers during the second debate, whenever that will be.
