Trump's pre-Super Bowl interview ratings down 45 percent over Obama's first one

President Donald Trump, who's every utterance has been a rating boost for the cable networks, failed to bring in big numbers for the Fox network, drawing only 55 percent of the viewers who tuned in to see ex-President Barack Obama after he was first elected in 2008.

According to the Huffington Post,  Trump's interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly drew a paltry 12.2 million viewers, down 45 percent from the 21.9 million viewers who watched Obama's first interview as president in 2009.

In fact, Obama also drew higher numbers than Trump during his later interviews in 2014 (18 million), 2015 (16.4 million) and 14.9 million in 2016.

Trump's low numbers come after his interview was heavily hyped by the Trump-friendly Fox Network that teased the interview with clips of the president discussing his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where Trump defended the Russian strongman after O'Reilly called him a "killer."

According to USA Today, preliminary numbers indicate Super Bowl LI was in the top five of most viewed championship games.