Apparently, many Americans spared themselves the torture of watching Tuesday night’s first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

According to early numbers from Nielsen, the debate, which was aptly described by CNN’s Jake Tapper as “a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck,” is on track to draw a far smaller audience than the record-setting first face-off between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Fast national ratings for the broadcast networks show the Trump-Biden showdown amassing about 29 million total viewers across ABC (which drew the largest broadcast crowd, with 11 million), NBC (8 million), CBS (5.3 million) and Fox (4.5 million) — a decline of 36 percent from 2016.

Four years ago, the broadcast networks combined for 45.3 million total viewers in the preliminary ratings, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That figure rose to 49.33 million after time-zone adjustments for the broadcast. When other outlets, including the cable networks, were factored in, the Trump-Clinton debate wound up at 84.4 million viewers, besting the previous record set by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan’s Oct. 28, 1980 debate (81 million).

The ratings for Tuesday’s Trump-Biden debate will adjust upward once more numbers from cable and other outlets are added, but still are unlikely to approach the numbers from four years ago.

Tuesday’s debate, moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, was widely derided by viewers and critics who described it as “chaotic,” “combative” and a “travesty.”

Speaking on MSNBC, longtime political pundit James Carville said an unruly Trump  “just chased the audience away. It was unwatchable …  “tough television.”