More than 19 million people watched the first prime-time hearing of the House of Representatives’ election commission’s investigation into Thursday’s January 6 attack, according to preliminary estimates by Nielsen.
This number will increase in the coming hours as more networks are reported and out-of-home viewing is taken into account. Nielsen is expected to have a final figure to watch on Friday night.
By scheduling a congressional hearing from 8 to 10 p.m., committee members and Democrats hoped to present the case to the largest possible audience. ABC, CBS and NBC overtook their programs in prime time and switched to special reportage to cover it live.
Although the figure faded on Thursday night before the presidential debate (63 million to 73 million) or this year’s address on the state of the union (38 million), it is still much larger than the audience that usually watches a congressional hearing during the day. And it’s at the center of TV events like the big Sunday Night Football game or Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.
ABC attracted the largest audience among the broadcast networks with 4.8 million viewers. NBC and CBS had an audience of over three million. MSNBC had an average audience of 4.2 million and CNN attracted 2.6 million.
The spectators who joined mostly stayed around for the entire session of Congress. Viewers in each of the broadcast networks remained stable between 8pm and 10pm, according to Nielsen’s half-hour breakdown.
As broadcast networks dropped their prime-time entertainment offerings and CNN and MSNBC gave listeners wall-to-wall coverage, there was a noticeable deviation among cable news networks. Fox News, the most-watched cable network, did not broadcast the hearings, instead sticking to its usual prime-time lineup.
Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity dedicated their broadcasts on Jan. 6 and both had a live hearing on a split screen – but congressional broadcasts were silenced as the hosts spent two hours downplaying the committee’s efforts.
“It’s crazy and we’re not playing together,” Mr Carlson said of the hearings. “This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not broadcast their propaganda live. They are lying and we will not help them do it. What we will do instead is try to tell you the truth. “
Fox’s counterprogramming efforts have attracted an average audience of three million, which is almost normal.
Fox News presenters Brett Bayer and Martha McCallum did cover the hearings live, but they did it on Fox Business, which attracts far fewer viewers. Approximately 223,000 people watched the Fox Business hearings. When Mr. Bayer and Ms. McCallum switched to Fox News for a two-hour special program at 11 p.m., an average of 1.3 million people watched.
Local affiliates of the Fox broadcasting network had the opportunity to take on a Fox Business program, but were not required to do so. Some major Fox affiliates, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, took the show, while others aired regularly scheduled non-script programs. Fox in New York, for example, has chosen to release episodes of MasterChef Junior and Don’t Forget the Lyrics.
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