--- title: State of the Union 2015: How Many People Watched Obama? description: In 2015, 31.7 million people tuned in, down from 33.3 million in 2014 canonical: https://time.com/3677555/nielsen-obama-state-of-the-union-viewership/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-21T23:33:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T03:46:05.806Z article:section: Politics og:title: 31.7 Million Tuned in to Obama's State of the Union Address og:description: Down from 33.3 million in 2014 og:url: https://time.com/3677555/nielsen-obama-state-of-the-union-viewership/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 31.7 Million Tuned in to Obama's State of the Union Address twitter:description: Down from 33.3 million in 2014 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 31.7 Million Tuned in to Obama's State of the Union Address by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Jan 21, 2015 11:33 PM UTC by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Jan 21, 2015 11:33 PM UTC The numbers are in, and it was [another lackluster year](http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/31-7-million-viewers-tune-in-to-watch-pres-obamas-state-of-the-union-adress.html) in terms of live telecast viewership of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Nielsen reports 31.7 million people tuned in to the various networks that hosted the annual telecast, down from 33.3 million in 2014. The low viewership comes as no surprise, really. There’s been a [steady decline](http://time.com/3674318/state-union-nielsen-ratings/) in telecast viewership over the past several years, but the 2015 audience was the smallest audience that Obama has drawn since taking office in 2009\. During his first address, about 52.4 million people tuned in. Social media participation in the address, however, was high. Some 2.6 million tweets were sent out during the hour-long address, Nielsen noted, with 44,000 tweets being sent out after the now-infamous moment when the President [noted](http://time.com/3675829/state-union-obama-troll/) he had no more campaigns to run. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3677555/nielsen-obama-state-of-the-union-viewership/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3677555/nielsen-obama-state-of-the-union-viewership/"},"headline":"31.7 Million Tuned in to Obama's State of the Union Address","datePublished":"2015-01-21T23:33:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T03:46:05.806Z","description":"Down from 33.3 million in 2014","url":"https://time.com/3677555/nielsen-obama-state-of-the-union-viewership/","keywords":["White House","state of the union"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3677555/nielsen-obama-state-of-the-union-viewership/","name":"31.7 Million Tuned in to Obama's State of the Union Address"}}]}] ```