GOP debate shatters Fox News ratings mark

NEW YORK – Donald Trump always boasted about his ratings for “Celebrity Apprentice.” Now he can say the same thing about his first presidential debate, even if he didn’t like the show very much.

Thursday’s prime-time GOP candidates’ forum on Fox News Channel reached a stunning 24 million viewers, by far the largest audience ever for that network and any cable news event. The closest was the 1992 “Larry King Live” debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot on CNN, which was seen by 16.8 million people, the Nielsen company said.

In fact, it stands as the most-watched television program of the summer so far, beating the last game of the NBA Finals and the women’s World Cup soccer finals, Nielsen said.

The debate left front-runner Trump feeling singed by the aggressive questioning of Fox’s moderator team of Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace. Trump tweeted out criticism of the moderators as “not very good or professional” and retweeted a message from a supporter who called Kelly a “bimbo.”

Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes called his moderators “the best political team ever put on television.”

Fox had attracted attention prior to the debate for deciding to include 10 of the 17 declared candidates in the prime-time debate. The other candidates competed in a forum that began at 5 p.m. ET before an audience one-quarter the size. Still, even the earlier forum attracted a larger audience than all but five of 18 Republican debates televised during the 2012 election cycle.

The most-watched GOP primary debate for the 2012 election, on ABC in December 2011, drew 7.6 million viewers, Nielsen said.

Fox attracted just under 12 million viewers for its 2012 Election Night coverage, its previous standard for biggest audience.