According to Nielsen’s early estimates, nine of the channels that broadcast the hearing had an average of 19 million viewers during the two-hour hearing. However, this data does not account for every TV channel or most web streaming, so the real amount is higher.
Big live events are being cut and diced in dozens of different ways on radio, television and the internet, so any attempt to measure the total audience is inherently incomplete.
The first figures are worthy of respect, given the fragmented state of television, but other widespread political events have gathered a larger audience recently. President Biden’s address on the state of the union in March had an average of 38 million viewers on sixteen channels.
Loyal Tucker Carlson fans stayed with him on Thursday as he showed that he ignored revelations about the attack on democracy. Carlson had an average of about 3.3 million spectators, which is an ordinary evening for him. It is noteworthy, however, that Carlson did not take any commercial breaks, which may have tempted some of his viewers to try the hearing on another channel.
While Carlson’s assessments reflected the fact that some right-wing viewers were not interested in listening, there was another audience.
Between 20:00 and 22:00 east, approximately 5 million people watched the ABC hearing; 3.6 million on NBC; and 3.4 million under CBS.
More than 4.3 million people watched cable on MSNBC and more than 2.7 million people watched it on CNN, between three and four times more than the typical prime time audience for the channels.
The Fox Business Network, which offered audio coverage instead of Fox News, drew just 200,000 viewers.
The right-wing Newsmax channel, which showed most of the hearing, had less than 150,000 viewers.
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