NBC News Hosts Second Highest-Rated Democratic Debate

About 10.2 Million Americans tuned into Sunday's debate.
The fourth democratic debate, hosted by NBC, brought in a 7.2 household rating, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.
The fourth democratic debate, hosted by NBC, brought in a 7.2 household rating, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings.
Bloomberg via Getty Images

Sunday's Democratic debate, hosted by NBC, was the party's second-most watched this election cycle, with about 10.2 million viewers tuning into the channel, according to the network.

An additional 1.2 million viewers streamed the event on NBCNews.com, Youtube and the network's mobile applications. The debate, which was moderated by "Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt and NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, was also viewed by just over 500,000 people on MSNBC.

Didn't watch the debate? See the highlights of what you missed, below:

While NBC's ratings beat out the last two Democratic debates -- ABC had about 7.8 million viewers and CBS had about 8.5 million -- it isn't even close to the first Democratic debate hosted by CNN, which brought in 15.3 million viewers.

The uptick in ratings from the last two DNC debates could be the result of a tightening in the polls between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire, which has resulted in Clinton going on the attack against Sanders by pointing out their differences on health care and gun control.

The last two debates were also held on Saturdays, which typically see lower ratings than Sundays.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) has been criticized in the past for scheduling a number of the debates on weekends, which typically see lower ratings than debates held on weekdays. Sanders and fellow democratic candidate Martin O'Malley have criticized the DNC, arguing that the debate schedule gave front-runner Clinton an advantage.

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