NEW YORK—Nielsen is reporting that an estimated 36.6 million people watched President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, March 4. Viewership peaked from 9:45 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. ET with 37,895,000 viewers.
This year’s audience was up over 13% compared with the 32.2 million viewers that watched President Biden’s State of the Union address in 2024.
But it was lower than most of the State of the Union Speeches delivered by Trump during his first term in office. The 2016 speech attracted 31.3 million viewers, but there were 47.7 million viewers in 2017, 45.6 million in 2018 and 46.8 million in 2019.
Of the 36.6 million viewers that watched President Trump’s joint address in 2025: 5.7% of viewers were aged 18-34; 20.5% of viewers were aged 35-54; 70.7% of viewers were aged 55 and older.
While coverage varied by network, 15 networks televised the joint address from approximately 9:15 p.m. ET until 11:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Separately, Fox News Channel reported that the speech was the highest rated joint address to Congress in cable news history with an audience of 10.7 million viewers and 1.9 million in A25-54 from 9:17-10:58 PM/ET, according to Nielsen.
The network also drew the largest audience for the democratic response, averaging 5.9 million viewers and nearly 1 million in A25-54. During coverage of the speech, FNC held 74% of the cable news audience share in viewers and 70% in the A25-54 demo ahead of MSNBC (1,924,000 P2+; 237,000 25-54) and CNN (1,929,000 P2+; 585,000 A25-54).
Fox News Media delivered an audience of 13.6 million viewers and 2.9 million in A25-54 across FNC, Fox Business Network (FBN) and Fox Network.
Historical viewing figures for the State of the Union speech can be found here.
