the fiery final presidential debate between hillary clinton and donald j. trump drew 71.6 million viewers, the third-highest total ever for a presidential debate, according to data from nielsen released on thursday. the debate did not approach the record-setting first debate on sept. 26, which had 84 million viewers , but it did surpass the second debate audience of 66.5 million . by this point, record ratings have become a familiar story line for this year<u+2019>s election cycle. wednesday night closed out a 14-month debate season that featured two dozen debates, many of which set records, including: <u+25a0> the most-viewed debate ever (the first presidential debate). <u+25a0> the highest-rated primary debate and the highest-rated non-sports cable event ever (the first republican debate, which drew 24 million viewers in august 2015). <u+25a0> the highest-rated democratic debate ever (the first democratic debate in october 2015 had 15.8 million viewers ). chris wallace of fox news moderated wednesday<u+2019>s debate and received something that<u+2019>s been elusive this election cycle for moderators: nearly universal praise. one of mr. wallace<u+2019>s questions provided the day<u+2019>s biggest headline. when mr. wallace pressed mr. trump on whether he would unequivocally accept the election results, he refused to say he would. <u+201c>i will keep you in suspense,<u+201d> he said. unlike the first two presidential debates, wednesday<u+2019>s debate did not go head-to-head against a national football league game, though it did have competition from game 4 of the national league championship series (the second debate on oct. 9 ran opposite <u+201c>sunday night football,<u+201d> so nbc did not broadcast the debate at all). fox news had the highest ratings of any network on wednesday, 11.3 million, besting abc<u+2019>s 11 million, which ranked second. the ratings did not include streaming statistics or c-span, so the total audience was most likely quite a bit larger. the second most-viewed debate ever, the 1980 debate between ronald reagan and jimmy carter, had 80.6 million viewers. a version of this article appears in print on october 21, 2016, on page a17 of the new york edition with the headline: final debate  is watched  by 71 million. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
tumultuous debate draws over 71 million viewers
john koblin