Now I’m almost sorry I missed it:

In addition to being the third-most-watched debate of this election cycle, last night’s Democratic showdown in Cleveland was MSNBC’s most-watched program in the 11-year history of the network. In a head-to-head 9 p.m. ET match-up, the debate was second only to FOX’s American Idol. It ranked as the fourth most-watched program in Total Viewers on all of TV last night.

The numbers for the debate, which was moderated by Brian Williams, joined by Tim Russert, more than doubled MSNBC’s previous total viewer high of 3.7 million who watched on March 19, 2003, the night the Iraq war began.