Biden tops Trump for town hall television ratings

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden edged out President Donald Trump in viewership of their dueling town hall meetings held simultaneously Thursday on different networks, ratings show.

The latest numbers indicate the town halls garnered significantly higher viewership than past events, including 6.7 million viewers for Biden in an October 5 town hall and 3.8 million for Trump in September on ABC, indicating a possible rise in interest in the election.

Trump has long touted his ability to generate impressive television ratings as a sign of his popularity with the American public.

Ahead of Trump's town hall, NBC received backlash for allowing the president a platform in the same time slot as Biden, whose town hall was announced first after Trump dropped out the debate.

Referring to reports of Hunter Biden having reaped millions in foreign payments while his father was vice president, Mr. Trump said "Hunter Biden is a middleman".

Mr. Trump told his supporters, "The Biden family is a criminal enterprise and you know it, and so do I. In fact, they sort of make "crooked" Hillary Clinton look like amateur hour". "Record numbers watching. In the history of cable television, there's never been anything like it".

NBC News faced criticism over its scheduling of the Trump event at the same time as Biden's town hall, which had been in the books for more than a week, making it hard for viewers to watch both candidates. Jason Miller, Trump's senior campaign adviser, predicted before the events that Trump would draw a "much bigger audience than Joe".

The Nielsen numbers do not tally the number of people who watched the town halls online, After he got word that Biden's speech at the Democratic National Convention had been watched by more television viewers than his at the Republican National Convention, Trump claimed that he had still won the war for eyeballs.