Did Donald Trump have the most watched inauguration in US history?
Updated on January 28th to reflect CNN “gigapixel” photo.
An argument has sparked online about whether or not President Donald Trump’s inauguration managed to garner record breaking numbers of those watching – either on TV, the Internet or in person.
This argument was given further fuel when Sean Spicer – Trump’s press secretary and communications director – asserted in a press conference that –
This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.
So let’s look at the facts –
TL;DR – While Trump’s inauguration was unquestionably popular and certainly breaks in to the top 4 or 5 most popular US inaugurations, we cannot locate any data to support the claim that it was the most watched inauguration in history, a claim asserted by President Trump and his Press Secretary Sean Spicer.
First we take a look at the viewing figures in the United States – figures that are available through the Nielson Company who operate the most well-known audience measurement system known as the Nielson Ratings that measure – among other things – TV audiences across a number of different TV stations.
According to the Nielson ratings, an estimated 31 million people tuned in to watch the Trump inauguration. That certainly makes it one of the most watched inaugurations – however it doesn’t make it the most watched. It was beaten – as per the table below available from Nielson – by President Obama’s first inauguration in 2009 (38M), Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration in 1981 (42M) and by Jimmy Carter in 1977 (34M).
Measuring audiences that turned up in person to watch Trump take over the presidency is more difficult to gauge, since the National Park Service do not give official audience figures anymore (Spicer was correct about that, at least.) Various side-by-side photo comparisons have been shared online – one by the National Park Service for which is later apologised for sharing.
A photo from Obama’s first inauguration in 2009 and Trump in 2017.
Those photos do certainly suggest that Trump’s turnout was somewhat less in numbers than Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Many have claimed that the photo on the right showing Trumps inauguration was actually taken hours before the event, but this is demonstrably untrue. A hi-res version of the same photo clearly shows the podium full of people (it wouldn’t have been full hours before the inauguration) and the large screens on the right hand side clearly depict Trump talking during his speech, meaning the photo was taken during the inaugural speech itself.
This is backed up by the photographer himself, Lucas Jackson, who confirmed the photo was taken at 12.01pm, just after Trump has taken the oath of office.
A “gigapixel” photo was later released by CNN that again showed empty spots in the crowds. Originally, this photo was actually taken by many to dispute the above Jackson’s photo taken from the Washington Monument since a cursory glance appears to show a bigger crowd on the CNN gigapixel photo. But upon a more detailed study and the photos do actually match up.
It’s simply a matter of perspective; if a photo is taken from lower down and further away, empty spaces at the back will appear smaller because they become more obstructed by the crowds, and – of course – they are obviously further away! Zooming in towards the back of the crowd do reveal empty spaces, the same empty spaces that are better illustrated by the photos from the much higher vantage point at the top of the Washington Monument.
Press Secretary Spicer claimed in the same press conference that this was the first time white, plastic covering was used to protect the grass in the National Mall, and thus highlighted empty spots, presumably creating an illusion that the Mall contained less people. However this claim is false – flooring coverings were used in 2013 for the previous inauguration.
Audience numbers are estimated, and many experts have cited figures ranging from between 250,000 to 600,000. If the actual number falls towards the upper end of that range, that’s still an impressive figure, but again it doesn’t top the list of record breaking inauguration audiences. Trump himself later touted a figure of 1.5 million (though it is unclear what data he was using to obtain that number) and even if that figure was correct, it still wouldn’t break the Obama’s 2009 (first inauguration) estimate of 1.8million.
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Perhaps a more quantitative and thus more reliable method of obtaining figures is to use the D.C. Metro public transit figures. The Metro do keep figures of how many people use the public transport system during inauguration days. Despite figures that came from Press Secretary Spicer, the Metro themselves tweeted that as of 11am (the inauguration was a noon so presumably this counts for nearly all inauguration spectators) the 2017 inauguration day figures were 193k, and 2013 inauguration day figures were 317k and the 2009 inauguration day figures were 513k by the same time. If you took the figures from the Metro for the whole of the inauguration day, the 2017 figures are still substantially lower than both 2013 and 2009.
Both the photos, expert estimates and Metro transit figures all suggest the 2017 Trump inauguration day in-person audience estimates, while popular, were less popular than either of Obama’s 2009 or 2013 inaugurations.
The only other possible measurement we can turn to after domestic viewing figures and audience numbers are global audiences including those who streamed the event from overseas or via unofficial or illegal streaming services.
Of course being able to determine any kind of estimate for a global audience is inherently difficult. Many TV stations across the globe do not (or have not yet) released viewing figures for US inaugurations, and there are any number of ways to stream the event online that would be impossible to track.
However, the figures that we have seen simply do not support Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s claim that President Trump had record breaking viewing figures, either globally, domestically or for people who actually showed up.
While we’ll happily concede that there are – by far – more important metrics to determine the successes or failures of a presidency than something as trivial as the number of people who watch the inauguration, it is still important not to give mistruths a free reign across the Internet.
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