“The Nielsen ratings just came out,” Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said with a smile on Friday in Colorado, hours after his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, delivered her climactic convention speech. “We beat her by millions.”  Mr. Trump did deserve some bragging rights: His fiery convention address in Cleveland edged Mrs. Clinton’s remarks in Philadelphia by about 2.4 million viewers, according to cable and broadcast ratings released by Nielsen on Friday. About 29.8 million Americans watched Mrs. Clinton Thursday night; a week before, 32.2 million tuned in to Mr. Trump.  But over all, Mr. Trump’s side came up short. The Democratic convention this week beat its Republican counterpart on three out of four nights, thanks in part to memorable prime-time speeches by President Obama, Michelle Obama and former President Bill Clinton — not to mention a song by the pop star Demi Lovato.  Presidents, it turns out, may be bigger draws than sitcom stars like Scott Baio, one of Mr. Trump’s featured speakers. On average, 26.2 million viewers watched the Democrats each night, compared to 24.6 million for the Republicans, Nielsen said.  It is tempting to extrapolate political support from television ratings, but many Americans now watch political speeches on the web, and tuning in to a candidate does not necessarily correlate with a vote.  But the prevailing view in the broadcast world on Friday was that, spectacle-wise, the Democrats had simply put on a better show.  A visual analysis of the presidential and vice-presidential convention speeches.  Mr. Trump had no former presidents at his convention, and on a couple of nights there were long pauses during the prime 10 p.m. hour, leaving commentators scrambling to fill airtime. The second night’s program finished about 20 minutes early, wasting valuable prime-time exposure.  As a production, the Democrats’ convention was more tightly scripted, although, like a well-intentioned Oscar ceremony, it ran long every night.  To the chagrin of the three broadcast networks, the Philadelphia speeches stretched well into the 11 p.m. hour: President Obama spoke on Wednesday until 11:46 p.m. For years, that sort of overrun was considered a breach of broadcast etiquette, forcing affiliate stations to delay local newscasts and, the wisdom went, hurting candidates because viewers went to sleep.  These days, in the era of YouTube and 24-hour news channels, network prime time is far less key.  “Between social media and cable, the old rules of TV scheduling have to go out the window,” said Jonathan Klein, the former president of CNN. “I’d be surprised if it was purposeful,” Mr. Klein said of this week’s overlong speeches. “But it very well may be that it doesn’t matter one bit.”  In fact, the convention’s production team, which presided from a booth adjacent to the stage, had not anticipated running past the allotted hour of network prime time. On Wednesday, the team was certain that they would end on time, but a speech by Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, the vice-presidential nominee, ran double its expected length.  None of the three broadcast networks cut away when Mr. Obama, Mr. Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders spoke past 11 p.m. That choice irked the Republican National Committee, whose communications director, Sean Spicer, issued a statement accusing the networks of unequal coverage.  CreditJosh Haner/The New York Times  “We can see quite clearly that each network have given anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes extra per night of prime-time coverage to the D.N.C.,” Mr. Spicer wrote, noting that the networks did not air a late-night speech by Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, a rising Republican star, on the first night of the Cleveland convention.  Ms. Ernst’s appearance was delayed because a prior speaker went far past his allotted time, an error that was widely cited by political operatives as an example of sloppy planning on the Republicans’ part.  Within the industry, Fox News and CNN were the big winners of the past two weeks, a sign of cable’s influence. Fox News beat its broadcast rivals during the Cleveland convention in overall viewers, and CNN did so this week in Philadelphia. NBC was the top-rated broadcast network.  Some of Fox News’s programming choices, however, came under fire. The network did not air a speech on Thursday night by Khizr Khan, a Muslim immigrant whose son, an Army captain, was killed in Iraq in 2004. Mr. Khan’s appearance was among the week’s most powerful moments; while he spoke, Fox News aired commercials and commentary that was critical of Mrs. Clinton.  “We reported on the speeches and cited them throughout the evening and into today, as well,” Jay Wallace, Fox News’s executive vice president of news and editorial, said in a statement on Friday.  CNN opted for more speeches and less commentary, airing extended remarks by convention speakers rather than frequently cutting to analysis from pundits.  Even as television confronts a host of upstart rivals in the tech world, the industry can take heart that this week’s ratings were higher than those of a previous political gathering in Philadelphia: the 1948 Democratic and Republican conventions, the first time that the events were televised around the nation.  An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Scott Baio’s television career. He starred in sitcoms, not soap operas.
The Nielsen ratings came in, and while more than 32 million people tuned in to watch Mr. Trump’s speech, the Democrats’ convention drew more viewers.