
Last night, 12 Democratic presidential candidates took the stage in Ohio for the fourth debate, hosted by CNN and the New York Times: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Juli n Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, and Tom Steyer.
First, a look at advertising insights from iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company. In total, there were 81.4 million TV ad impressions over the three-hour debate.
Five brands accounted for nearly half of all spend over the course of the evening: Freedom from Religion Foundation, NumbersUSA, The Washington Post, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros.
Not counting CNN promos, Warner Bros. was the only brand to run two separate spots: one for Motherless Brooklyn and the other for The Good Liar. Freedom from Religion Foundation, NumbersUSA and The Washington Post each aired one ad twice. Here are the three most-seen ads from last night:
1. NumbersUSA TV Spot, E-Verify Works - 2 airings, 9.37 million impressions
2. Freedom from Religion Foundation TV Spot, Church and State Featuring Ron Reagan - 2 airings, 9.29 million impressions
3. Amazon Prime Video TV Spot, Tom Clancys Jack Ryan: Season One - 1 airing, 6.03 million impressions
We can also see viewership trends from Inscape, the TV data company with glass-level insights from a panel of more than 11 million smart TVs. Here's a look at where viewers were tuning in from across U.S. DMAs:
Via Inscape
In general, the East and West Coasts had slightly higher tune-in than middle America. Other hot spots included Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City-Dubuque, IA; Columbus, OH; Topeka, KS; Flint-Saginaw-Day City, MI; and West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce, FL DMAs.
Inscape also tracked minute-by-minute viewership for the three-hour debate:
Via Inscape
Tune-in rose steadily in the first hour, plateaued a bit, then started a slow decline as the night wore on. There were two main peaks in viewership: First, around 9:25 p.m. ET, when candidates were discussing checking Trump and Russia/Putin, and election security/hacking threats. Then a little later viewership peaked around 9:57 p.m. ET, when Bernie Sanders discussed his health and candidates talked about whether age is an issue.
North America Stories
21/09/2026
From Graphic Novel to 30-Minute Animated Film: What I Learned Building an AI-Ass...
21/09/2026
Liam Hopkins Builds Recording Studio with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton September 20, 2026
0 Comments
Video complements audio production with music v...
21/09/2026
Clean energy isn't hard to come by, but the pace of large-scale adoption has historically been slow due to bottlenecks - including out-of-date infrastructur...
20/09/2026
COW Jobs: Video Editor, Motion Designer - Remote, PT, 6 Months
Brie Clayton September 20, 2026
0 Comments
Video Editor + Motion Designer (Remote | PT ...
19/09/2026
Two High-Profile Professional Sports Franchises Renew creative.space Contracts with DigitalGlue
NFL team and Major League Soccer Club cite ease of use, secure ...
19/09/2026
Limited Edition Audio releases VoxSplit Pro for overlapping dialogue separation ...
18/09/2026
IBC 2026 Tech Moves Beyond the Gloss and Into the Rack If you spent any time in the halls of the RAI this year, you noticed a clear shift in conversation. The c...
18/09/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
18/09/2026
Qvest has appointed Jens Miedek as Senior Vice President Sales, Media and Entertainment. Before joining Qvest, Miedek spent 16 years at Riedel Communications an...
18/09/2026
Fonn Group has acquired full ownership of everviz, a cloud-native platform for interactive charts, maps, and data-driven graphics, and will rebrand it as Teikna...
18/09/2026
Other World Computing (OWC) has announced the acquisition of OpenDrives, a provider of software-defined video and rich media storage management solutions. The a...
18/09/2026
Kaltura and Verimatrix have announced a partnership integrating Verimatrix's Digital Rights Management and security capabilities into Kaltura's Cloud TV...
18/09/2026
The sixth edition of the World Nomad Games combined traditional sports, large-scale cultural performances, and some decidedly modern broadcast technology. Held ...
18/09/2026
DAZN and Super League Basketball (SLB) have extended their partnership for the 2026-27 season. Every Championship, Cup, and Play-Off fixture will be available l...
18/09/2026
Nielsen has announced that its Streaming Content Ratings (SCR) product will move from weekly to daily data delivery, with clients now receiving viewership data ...
18/09/2026
ESPN will present LALIGA's ElCl sico on ABC for the first time, with FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid airing Sunday, October 25 at 4 p.m. ET. A one-hour pre-mat...
18/09/2026
The University of Pennsylvania's Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate ...
18/09/2026
The Charlotte Hornets have announced DAZN as their exclusive direct-to-consumer streaming partner for the 2026-27 NBA season. The service launches immediately, ...
18/09/2026
Broadcast sports' original medium will let drivers keep on hearing the plays thanks to a new bill set to pass the Senate....
18/09/2026
Fourteen iPhone 18 Pro devices - eight connected over a T-Mobile Private 5G Netw...
18/09/2026
The Minnesota Lynx have announced that their final local broadcast of the 2026 regular season will air free on FOX 9 following the shutdown of Victory . The Ly...
18/09/2026
Monumental Sports Network (MNMT) has announced that its Monumental+ streaming service is now available as a subscription through Prime Video, giving Capitals an...
18/09/2026
WTGL, the women's team golf league created by TMRW Sports in partnership with the LPGA, has announced its inaugural season schedule. The season premieres Su...
18/09/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
18/09/2026
Studio Network Solutions (SNS) has won Best Journal Article at the 2026 IAMT Impact Awards for What Video Editors Need When Everything Is Changing Around Them, ...
18/09/2026
HPA is supporting Fix It or Risk It, a non-commercial, industry-wide public-service campaign helping organizations across the media and entertainment supply cha...
18/09/2026
DHD reports a high level of interest in its range of audio production equipment on all four days of the September 11-14 International Broadcasting Convention in...
18/09/2026
Sonnet Announces Thunderbolt 5 eGPU With 850-Watt Power Supply and Integrated Do...
18/09/2026
DeckBridge adds live Resolve playback and Fairlight controls to Stream Deck
Brie Clayton September 17, 2026
0 Comments
DeckBridge starting profiles ac...
18/09/2026
Learn to arrange tracks using Color With Live's Free Stencil Pack
Brie Clayton September 17, 2026
0 Comments
Stencils are Color With Live's or...
18/09/2026
Berklee Establishes Susan Tedeschi Scholarship in Honor of Grammy-Winning Alumna The scholarship is announced as Tedeschi returns to headline the Berklee Bloc...
18/09/2026
Senior Colorist Siggy Ferstl of Company 3 has been grading The Boys since the sh...
18/09/2026
Senior Colorist Siggy Ferstl of Company 3 has been grading The Boys since the sh...
17/09/2026
Lions vs. Bills will also be the first regular-season game at new Highmark Stadi...
17/09/2026
Teradek has announced Bolt 7, a wireless video and data system that adds an integrated 900MHz radio to the Bolt's zero-delay video pipeline. The 900MHz chan...
17/09/2026
DAZN has announced three appointments to its executive leadership team, all reporting to CEO Shay Segev effective immediately.
Patrick Delany has been appointe...
17/09/2026
Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE) has announced a leadership restructuring. Zach Leonsis has been named President and Vice Chairman, a newly created pos...
17/09/2026
CP Communications has been named Best of Florida for Audio-Visual Services, and its subsidiary Red House Streaming has been named Best Movie and Recording Studi...
17/09/2026
Scripps Sports and ION have announced a broadcast partnership for the Shriners Children's East-West Bowl, the nation's oldest college all-star football ...
17/09/2026
The 17th annual espnW: Women + Sports Summit, presented by Toyota, will take place October 14-16 at the Ojai Valley Inn in Ojai, California, with virtual attend...
17/09/2026
The Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA) and Shure Incorporated have...
17/09/2026
Lithuanian broadcaster LNK Group has completed a migration of playout and media management for its five national television networks - LNK, BTV, TV1, InfoTV, an...
17/09/2026
Net Insight has announced a pan-Asian live media network created with its regional partners, giving broadcasters, production companies, and media service provid...
17/09/2026
After a high school football injury, the Orlando native found a new path in video production, gaining experience on ESPN college football broadcasts, Tampa Bay ...
17/09/2026
Streaming Content Ratings (SCR) Data Shifts to Daily Delivery Cadence, Mirroring...
17/09/2026
August brought further stabilization in total TV viewing time. Poles spent an average of 3 hours and 31 minutes a day watching video content on TV glass-just 2 ...
17/09/2026
Post-sports seasonal shift redistributes viewership across Poland, while streami...
17/09/2026
Television Content Analytics Pte Ltd (TVC), a Singapore-based deep-tech company specialising in sports technology, artificial intelligence and live broadcast in...
17/09/2026
Rise WIB, the global advocacy group championing gender diversity and career progression across the media technology industry, today announced the shortlist for ...
17/09/2026
RALEIGH, N.C. - Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) and Hurricanes Holdings annou...