Town hall ratings: More people watched Biden on ABC than Trump on NBC, CNBC and MSNBC
16 October 2020
ABC's live town hall event with Joe Biden Thursday night drew 14.1 million viewers, surpassing the final Nielsen ratings for NBC's town hall with President Trump, which was aired across NBC, MSNBC and CNBC and drew 13.5 million viewers in the same hour.
Why it matters: The president's lively hour-long town hall, moderated by Savannah Guthrie, was expected to trounce Biden's more calm, policy-focused hour and a half town hall event moderated by ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
Be smart: Nielsen's ratings include viewership on broadcast and cable channels that aired each town hall (ABC for Biden and NBC, MSNBC and CNBC for Trump), as well as viewership of those channels on internet-connected TVs and out-of-home viewership (viewership at bars, restaurants, etc.)
Between the lines: Prior to Thursday night's Trump town hall, NBC was slammed for agreeing to air its town hall at the same time as the ABC event.
- “Today” host Guthrie drew both praise and criticism for her hard-hitting interrogation-style line of questioning to Trump.
- The Biden town hall was comparatively very postured. It ran for a half hour longer than the Trump town hall.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.