Twitter and Nielsen Say Interest in the State of the Union Address is Falling
US President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks at the University of Queensland on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Brisbane on November 15, 2014.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident Barack Obama will deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday to a populace that has grown increasingly disinterested with the speech.
Nielsen ratings for the speech have been in decline over the course of the past three presidential administrations, including Obama's. In 2009, Obama's first State of the Union address drew 52.3 million viewers, but 2014's had just 33.3 million viewers, a personal worst and the lowest since 2000, the Washington Post reported. That figure means that the speech was seen in about 20 percent of U.S. households. Last year's Academy Awards on ABC, by comparison, had 10 million more viewers, despite alternate programming by competing major networks.