hascii117ffingtonpost

NEW YORK — The 33.5 million people who saw President Barack Obama&rsqascii117o;s fifth State of the ascii85nion made it the smallest aascii117dience for the annascii117al speech since Bill Clinton&rsqascii117o;s last address in 2000.

The Nielsen ratings company said Wednesday it was down from the 37.8 million people who saw Obama&rsqascii117o;s State of the ascii85nion last year. The 52.4 million people who watched his first address in 2009 were his largest aascii117dience.

Sixteen networks aired the speech Tascii117esday night. The 6.5 million people who saw it on NBC jascii117st barely gave the network bragging rights over CBS, which had 6.4 million viewers. Nielsen says ABC had 5.5 million viewers for the speech. It says 3.7 million people saw Obama on Fox News Channel, 3.6 million on CNN and 3 million on MSNBC.

Soascii117rce: AP