October 6, 2016
By Lisa de Mores

UPDATE with final Nielsen stats: (click here) Nielsen confirms 37.1M viewers watched Tuesday’s Veep debate across ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, CNN, FBN, FNC, and MSNBC. Of that crowd nearly 36M are voting age, with the lion’s share aged 55 years and older – just over 22M.

Previous 1:20 PM: PBS reports it contributed another 1.47 million viewers to the audience for last night’s Veep debate between Donald Trump’s running mate Mike Pence and Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine. That brings the total viewer tally to nearly 37.1M viewers....

...Palin remains the reigning queen of Veep debate ratings. She’s credited with reeling in most of the 70M who’d tuned in to her ’08 face-off with Joe Biden. Last night’s debate also was no match for the previous most recent Veep debate, in  ‘12, between Biden and Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan, which nabbed 51M viewers. That debate also was carried on Spanish language networks, Univision and Telemundo, while last night’s debate was not. Even the Dick Cheney-John Edwards match scored a bigger crowd in 2004: 44M viewers....