Over 19 million people watched first prime- listening time of House Select Committee investigation into the January 6 case attack on Thursday evening, according to preliminary Nielsen rankings.
This number will grow in arrival hours as more nets are counted and out-of-home viewing counts in. Nielsen is expected to final number of spectators on Friday evening.
By scheduling congressional hearings for Between 8 and 10 p.m., committee members and Democrats hoped to get the case to the largest possible audience. possible. ABC, CBS and NBC got ahead of them prime-temporary programming and entered special-Report mode to cover it live.
Though the figure of Thursday night turns pale next for presidential debates (63 million versus 73 million) or this yearstate of the address of the Union (38 million), it is still much more than the audience that usually watches daytime congressional hearings. And this in stadium of TV events like a big “Sunday Night Football” game or Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
ABC attracted The largest audience among broadcast networks, with 4.8 million viewers. NBC and CBS had their own audiences. of more than three million. MSNBC had an average audience of 4.2 million and CNN 2.6 million.
Spectators who customized in basically stuck for the entire congressional process. number of views on each of in broadcast networks remained stable between 8 and 10 p.m., according to halfNielsen’s hourly breakdowns.
While broadcast networks gave up their prime entertainment offerings, as well as CNN and MSNBC, hosted a hearing wall-to-wall coverageThere was a noticeable outlier among the cable news networks. Fox News, most viewed network in cable, did not hold a hearing live, instead adhesion with it’s usually prime-time lineup.
Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity dedicated shows until January 6, and both had a hearing playing live in split screen, but the broadcast from Congress was muted and the hosts spent two hours belittling the committee’s efforts.
“It’s not normal and we don’t playing together,” Mr. Carlson said. of hearing. “This is the only hour on American news a channel that will not carry its own propaganda live. They lie and we’re not going to help they do it. What do we do instead is to try to tell you truth”.
Fox’s counterprogramming efforts attracted average audiences of three million that just about normal.
Fox News anchors Bret Bayer and Martha McCallum did cover the hearing. live but did it on Fox Business, which attracts far fewer viewers. Approximately 223,000 people watched the hearing on Fox Business. When Mr. Bayer and Ms. McCallum switched places over on Fox News for two-hour special at 11 o’clock on average of 1.3 million viewed.
Local branches of Fox broadcast network had option of collection up Fox Business channel, but not required to do this. Some major Fox affiliates, like Los Angeles and Chicago took channel, while others aired regularly scheduled programs without a script. Fox Station in New York market, for example, elected to run episodes of MasterChef Junior and Don’t Forget the Words.
