Nearly 19 million television viewers watched the first prime-time hearing of the House select committee probing the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Ratings data released Friday indicated the hearing was watched by roughly 18.8 million people across the six major American broadcast and cable networks that aired the program live Thursday night. The preliminary data comes from the Nielsen ratings service and does not include the millions more who watched the hearing on streaming apps or social media, where many clips of testimony went viral.
The major broadcast networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – cleared their popular prime-time entertainment schedules to broadcast the hearing, without commercial interruption, from 8 to 10 p.m., Eastern time, as did cable news channels such as CNN and MSNBC.
ABC drew the biggest audience, nearly 4.9 million total viewers, followed by MSNBC, NBC and CBS and CNN.
The only major cable news outlet not to cover the hearing was Fox News. (“The dullest, the most boring, there’s absolutely nothing new, multi-hour Democratic fundraiser masquerading as a Jan. 6 hearing,” Fox host Sean Hannity declared.)
Instead, Fox dispatched two of its news anchors to host hearing coverage on much-less-watched sister channel Fox Business Network, where it drew 223,000 viewers as opposed to the 3 million who watched Fox News.
Viewers who flipped between channels found a striking uniformity in presentation of the hearing, with networks mostly keeping an unblinking camera on the proceedings of the committee, distinguishing themselves only with their choice of anchors and pundits to analyze the hearing after its conclusion at 10 p.m.
Industry watchers expressed some advance skepticism about viewership, considering the trends of recent decades. While some 71% of Americans told Gallup that they watched some of the Watergate hearings live back in 1973, the first televised hearing of Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial drew only about 13 million viewers in 2019, though it aired starting in the lesser-watched morning hours. Former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony in July 2019 also drew nearly 13 million viewers, which was shy of the 19.5 million TV viewers who watched former FBI director James Comey’s testimony in 2017.
While he thought Thursday night’s hearing made for compelling television, industry analyst Brad Adgate cited both increased polarization and the proliferation of new video services to explain the drop from the Watergate-era viewing highs.
The second hearing of the committee is scheduled for Monday morning at 10 a.m., giving it a lower television profile. “It will be difficult to sustain the numbers going forward, but I anticipate a sizable audience and a lot of social media buzz,” Adgate said.
(c) 2022, The Washington Post · Jeremy Barr
19 million idiots.
I think these ratings are incorrect compared to other online assessments of the number of people who tuned into these sham hearings. At one point, only 499 people were turned into ABC, so these numbers as stated above are erroneous.
Ratings data released Friday indicated the hearing was watched by roughly 18.8 million people across the six major American broadcast and cable networks that aired the program live Thursday night.
How many people are watching those six combined networks on any other night? I have no idea how many but it makes a big difference if the number is the same, less or more than a typical night
Industry analyst Brad Adgate cited both increased polarization and the proliferation of new video services to explain the drop from the Watergate-era viewing highs.
The differences are that by Watergate(1)the investigation was careful to include Nixon supporters and avoid passionate Nixon enemies to ensure a fair unbiased investigation. The January 6 commission was careful to only include passionate Trump enemies to ensure it would NOT be a fair unbiased investigation (2)by Watergate we hadn’t already been told ad nauseum what was going to be said beforehand (3) by Watergate it was an actual hearing with both sides present and able to present their side. As opposed to this which was just a bunch of spliced video and preprepared indictment speeches
A WASTE OF TIME AND TAXPAYERS MONEY – NOTHING THERE – NADA – ZILCH
JUST A WAY FOR THE DEMOC-RATS TO TRY TO GET MORE VOTES BEFOR NOVEMBER
ANYONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WILL VOTE REPUBLICAN TO TAKE BACK THEIR COUTRY FROM THE SOCIALIST
Don’t want to make such comparisons but there is something about all networks cancelling all featured programs and advertising to show government party line propaganda that reminds me of North Korea.
Had the Trump side been able to present their side and question witnesses at their hearings as well that would have been one thing but the way things were this is reminiscent of North Korean government TV