Los Angeles: The first televised presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has drawn a total audience on television and the internet exceeding 100 million viewers.
On those numbers, it is now the most watched presidential debate in US history.
The previous record holder, the 1980 debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, which drew 80 million viewers, was broadcast in an era where only a few channels broadcast presidential debates.
In stark contrast the Clinton-Trump debate was broadcast in the US on six free-to-air networks and seven cable channels, as well as streaming via YouTube channels, media websites and social media platforms.
According to "overnight" US ratings data, the four "major" broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC drew a combined audience of 49.1 million viewers.
Breaking down that total across the four major networks, NBC was the most watched with 18.2 million viewers, followed by ABC with 13.5 million, CBS with 12.1 million and Fox with 5.3 million.
On cable, a total of 27.4 million additional viewers tuned in.
Breaking down that total, the leading channel was Fox News which had 11.4 million viewers, followed by 9.8 million watching CNN, 4.9 million watching MSNBC, 673,000 watching Fox Business and 520,000 watching CNBC.
The two Spanish-language channels Univision and Telemundo drew 2.5 million and 1.8 million viewers respectively.
And the US public broadcaster, PBS, had an audience of 2.9 million.
Those numbers bring the total US television audience to 83.7 million.
Streaming data is more difficult to break down.
Major media outlet YouTube accounts streaming the debate live accounted for some 10 million additional viewers.
Breaking down those numbers, NBC News's YouTube video stream drew the most viewers with 6.4 million views, followed by the PBS News Hour (1.57 million views), The Washington Post (1.3 million views), Fox News (586,991 views) and Univision (248,970 views).
But a number of YouTube accounts which streamed the debate live have been taken offline and are not reporting audience data.
Facebook figures are even more nebulous, with the social media platform reporting almost 55 million people had viewed "debate-related" live videos.
But breaking those numbers down, the live stream of the debate attracted a total of 73.8 million "likes", "posts", "comments" and "shares", from around 18 million Facebook users.
On the preliminary numbers, that brings the total audience for the debate to around 93.7 million, including YouTube but excluding Facebook.
Inclusive of Facebook, the total audience would easily be pushed across the 100 million viewer threshold, though finding a final audience figure may take days.
The comparative figure being used by most US media outlets is the 2016 football "Superbowl" which drew just over 100 million viewers off 49 rating points.
On that basis, the debate has equalled – if not slightly exceeded – the Superbowl audience.
The debate was aired in the US on the major networks ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS and the Spanish-language Univision, and on the cable channels CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, CNBC, Fusion and the public affairs channel C-SPAN.
It was also streamed live on the ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, C-SPAN, NBC, BuzzFeed, Politico, Telemundo, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Univision, Hulu and Yahoo websites, and via social media platforms Facebook and Twitter and the Google-owned video platform YouTube.
In Australia, it was carried live by the Seven Network, Sky News and ABC News 24. According to data from the Australian ratings agency OzTAM, almost three-quarters of a million Australians watched the debate across four free-to-air channels.
Breaking down the Australian numbers, Seven was in the lead by a comfortable margin (264,000), followed by ABC News 24 (192,000), the ABC (180,000) and SBS (60,000). Those totals include the five mainland capitals and regional areas.
The debate was also carried live on the cable channel Sky News Australia.
After the record-setting Carter-Reagan debate, the next most watched debates were the 1992 debate between George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, which drew 69.9 million, and the 1976 debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, which drew 69.7 million.
The lowest rated presidential debate was the 1996 debate between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole; it drew just 36.3 million viewers in the US.
Barack Obama's two presidential debates, 2008's with John McCain and 2012's with Mitt Romney, drew 63.2 million and 67.2 million respectively.
It is also important to note that the audience figures are taken from the historical record and not adjusted in terms of changes to the US population.
The first televised debate, in 1960 and between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, was watched by 66 million viewers at a time when the US population was just 179 million.
And the Reagan-Carter debate in 1982 drew its 80 million viewers at a time when the US population had reached 226 million.
The US population is presently 318.9 million.
DEBATE BY NUMBERS
2: Times Donald Trump used his catch phrase 'Make America Great again'
43: Times Trump spoke over Clinton
5: Times Hillary Clinton spoke over Trump
42: Per cent of the time Clinton spoke
58: Per cent of the time Trump spoke
13: Times Trump used the word "tremendous"
2: Times Clinton used the phrase "trumped-up"
90: Minutes scheduled for the debate
95: Minutes the debate actually went for
4: Times Trump denied he said climate change was a hoax created by China
85,273: Number of times Donald Trump's November 2012 tweet, "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese", had been retweeted by Tuesday afternoon. Twitter announced it was the most-retweeted during the debate.
