Did Twitter Steal The Presidential Debate Audience Away From Television?

It’s not surprising that the TV ratings for the second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Sunday were 18 percent lower than ratings for the first debate. At 69 million viewers, TV ratings were still nearly a record high for a second presidential debate, even though the debate was up against Sunday night NFL football.

However, while viewership on TV networks dropped significantly, Twitter Inc TWTR is reporting a huge surge in the number of viewers and engagement in the second debate. According to a Twitter press release, Twitter’s live stream of the second debate reached 2.5 million unique viewers, up 30 percent from the first debate.

Related Link: Debates, Football Can't Save Twitter's Stock Price

In addition, the debate was the most tweeted political event ever, with more than 17 million debate-related tweets posted.

Twitter investors may be more concerned with the bottom line, but there’s good news on that front as well. Ad inventory for all four presidential and vice presidential debates has already sold out, and ads for the pre- and post-debate Twitter shows have over-delivered in terms of impressions by 377 percent so far.

Twitter has been searching for a viable long-term growth strategy, and shareholders are hoping that streaming video could be the answer. So far, Twitter’s debate streaming has been a huge success, and its Thursday night NFL football streaming has also gotten mostly positive reviews.