The POLITICO report, in part, also stated:

“The slew of presidential primary debates, both Republican and Democrat, pushed Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business to ratings heights they had never seen in their histories, which in CNN’s case stretches back to 1980.

“The primary debates of 2015 brought in a whopping cumulative total of more than 120 million viewers, with more debates still to come. Around 24 million people watched the first GOP primary debate on Fox News in August, and 23 million watched CNN’s GOP primary debate in September.

“Those are numbers only matched by NFL football games, which average in the mid 20 millions, depending on the network, and surpass just about everything else on TV.”