REUTERS/Larry Downing
About 33.3 million people tuned in to the address, Obama's fifth overall. That was the lowest total since 31.5 million people watched President Bill Clinton's last State of the Union address in 2000.
Nielsen measured the number of viewers who watched live across 13 networks and tape-delayed on Univision. Overall, ratings for the State of the Union have been declining across the last three presidencies.
Among the three big cable news networks, only Fox News increased its audience from last year's address. The network outpaced MSNBC and CNN's combined viewers. Fox was up 28% in total viewers and 25% in the key 25-54 age demographic compared to last year.
The networks carrying the address live, according to Nielsen, were CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, Azteca, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Al Jazeera America, Galavision and Mun2.
According to Nielsen SocialGuide, 8.8 million people saw at least one of the 2.1 million tweets sent in the U.S. about the "State of The Union 2014."