The 2016 State of the Union might be the least watched in 20 years. That's not a bad thing.

[Commentary] The 2016 State of the Union might be the least watched address of the past two decades. Viewership for the speech has declined steadily since at least 1993, when President Bill Clinton's first message garnered nearly 67 million viewers. Every year under President Barack Obama, fewer and fewer people have tuned in, with just 31.7 million television viewers in 2015. That — combined with the trend of each President's last State of the Union being the least watched — means there will probably be an even smaller audience for 2016's speech.

The drop in viewership doesn't mean Americans don't care what the president has to say. We know this because the State of the Union has seen huge spikes when Americans have an especially compelling reason to listen. Perhaps the most striking example is in 2003, when 62 million people tuned in to listen to George W. Bush justify the invasion of Iraq, which the US did two months later.