Fiery Mayoral Debate Drew Few Viewers, Nielsen Says The Democratic mayoral debate televised on Wednesday night was filled with fireworks. But it turns out that relatively few voters actually saw them. The debate, broadcast live on the cable news channel NY1, attracted an average of only 50,000 viewers, according to ratings measured by Nielsen. The audience represented barely a tenth of the viewership of the previous televised mayoral debate, which was broadcast on WABC-TV on Aug. 13 and averaged 449,000 viewers, although it is not clear how many of those viewers lived in New York City. The relatively tiny viewership for the debate this week is not entirely surprising, because NY1 has a smaller audience than the network television stations. The channel is available to 2.1 million cable subscribers, mostly through Time Warner Cable. Steve Paulus, the senior vice president for news and local programming at Time Warner Cable, which owns NY1, said the total viewership for the debate on Wednesday was higher than the Nielsen figure, since the program was also broadcast on NY1 Noticias and C-Span, and streamed online. He added that NY1 believed Nielsen's sample underreported the channel's audience. "While those may be the Nielsen ratings, they don't tell the whole story," Mr. Paulus said. He added that NY1 was one of the most watched cable channels during the time of the debate, and noted that the audience figure was an average. "Theoretically, the number of households that saw a portion of the debate is much higher, considering some people don't watch the entire debate," Mr. Paulus said. The debate on Wednesday, broadcast from 7 to 8:30 p.m., was part of the official debate program organized by the city's Campaign Finance Board. Eric Friedman, a spokesman for the board, said hundreds of thousands of people had "participated" in the debate, including 1,500 in the live audience, and by following on radio, television, newspaper, Twitter and other online coverage. "Last night's debate got New Yorkers" attention," he said. This election year, we set out to raise the level of engagement around our debates, and we are thrilled with the result.' The Campaign Finance Board's next, and last, Democratic mayoral primary debate will be held on Sept. 3 and broadcast on WNBC-TV, which, as a network channel, is expected to draw a larger audience. The primary is Sept.