Last Night's Hearing: The TV Ratings Are In

[blogslug]

https://tvline.com/2022/06/10/ratings-jan-6-capitol-attack-commitee-hearing-primetime/

In the latest TV ratings, ABC led the primetime Thursday coverage of the House Select Committee on January 6th’s first public hearing.

ABC’s two-hour coverage averaged 4.9 million total viewers, TVLine has learned. Of the other broadcast networks, NBC tallied 3.6 million viewers, while CBS drew 3.4 million. (Fox aired MasterChef Junior and Don’t Forget the Lyrics reruns; The CW’s regularly scheduled drama programming is detailed below.)

Amongst cable news networks, MSNBC led the pack with 4.2 million total viewers, followed by CNN’s 2.6 million viewers. Fox News, which didn’t cover the hearing itself, averaged nearly 3 million viewers during the two-hour block. Fox Business (to which Fox News anchors’ actual news coverage was relegated) drew 223,000, while CNBC averaged 160K...

[UTUSN]

1. Looks like a great grand total!

[spooky3]

5. Nearly 20 million vs Fox's 3 million. Plus our local Fox

station (not included in the tally) also showed the hearing. I imagine others did, too.

[GoCubsGo]

15. And, that's not counting people who watched or will watch it later on various YouTube

or other video services. That will likely boost the numbers by millions more. I'm betting some of those 3 million FOX viewers will be part of that number.

[Pepsidog]

55. That's me. I will watch on other platforms when I'm in the right mood. I, like many, read a ton. I

am very disappointed by lack of accountability during TFG years but have not lost hope and think the more they dig and expose, and the more hearings, the better. I am also grateful for the hard work congressional staff has put into these vital investigations and hearings. It’s good to see that despite the cover-up by Barr of the Mueller investigation results and 2 failed impeachments, the Democratic Party is still trying to act like a real political party and not a crime syndicate.

[UTUSN]

64. Plus all the "reaction" punditry to come reaching tons who don't do it live!

[Hekate]

2. That's a LOT of people tuning in

[Postal Grunt]

66. Yeah, but...

the Superbowl usually draws around 100 million whether the contest is good or not. It's a sad situation when commercials have more appeal than the state of our democracy.

[spooky3]

3. Pretty amazing that MSNBC nearly matched or beat all networks that

Are in many more homes.

[SergeStorms]

29. Hard to beat their panel of news hounds.....

Rachel, Joy, Nicolle, Ari, Chris, Lawrence .......sorry if I missed some, but what a panel of experts.

[Spazito]

4. Those are really good numbers especially as they...

don't take into account those who were streaming CSPAN and other coverage.

[spooky3]

6. I think it was on YouTube, also, and that someone posted here

Some very high numbers.

[Spazito]

7. Yep, I know a lot of people went elsewhere to watch the hearings....

I think the overall numbers would be very, very high.

[empedocles]

9. Plus there will be highlights, reviews, summaries - for weeks to come.

[spooky3]

10. And there are lots of Tweets. The Jan. 6 committee Twitter account

Posted a video that had 5 million views earlier today:

Link to tweet

?s=21&t=4NzVJnRyrS_MHe7MmWH1wg

[empedocles]

25. Be really interesting to seem some reasonable projectons on total

viewers, - including pbs, you tube, etc, etc.

[czarjak]

58. Lordy! Those tapes. Who knew?

[Spazito]

12. And adding to that, Monday morning will have another hearing...

I'm betting DVRs were set at the end of last night's hearing. Unfortunately for the repubs, the American people can multi-task and take the hearings seriously while dealing with inflation.

[MagickMuffin]

8. I watched via YouTube PBS, which isn't even included

So,

How many were watching the PBS channel?

Combined there were 18.7 viewers.

Clearly not a very accurate tally.

[intheflow]

18. The PBS youtube channel had the most views of any of the major networks.

I'd love to see what their broadcast numbers were.

[crickets]

20. I watched MSNBC on YouTube TV and had no way of knowing how many others were watching.

Apparently Nielsen does put out a weekly top ten list for streamed TV shows, but there's no indication they included streaming numbers for this broadcast. I think they should, because plenty of people have ditched cable and there were likely a lot of us when combining paid and free options for watching online.

[vanlassie]

21. Is MSNBC always streamed in real time on YouTube TV?

[crickets]

30. As far as I can tell, YouTube TV is like watching live cable. It's just streamed online.

I have to admit I'm giving it a free trial just to watch the hearings, but I may end up keeping it. I can cast it to my TV if I like, and it's on my phone too which is kind of scary. There's a DVR feature that will record selected programs and store them in the cloud, etc. Each program (mind I've only looked at MSNBC and Stephen Colbert so far) will let you go back and watch 3 or 4 days of previous episodes without having recorded them. It's mighty convenient, though I don't know. Unless there are special hearings or something, I'd almost quit watching TV entirely.

[vanlassie]

45. Thanks- I'm going Comcast-Free asap.

[rurallib]

36. Yes - but YouTubeTV is a streaming service like Dish Sling

and it is different that YouTube itself.

We just recently signed up for YouTubeTV. I would think this viewers would be in the total viewers.

[Easterncedar]

31. I watched on PBS too

[50 Shades Of Blue]

11. K & R!

[gratuitous]

13. Local media outlet's Facebook page

Overrun by trolls telling everyone not to believe the testimony or video from the hearing. The program seems to have struck a nerve. Heh, heh.

[Kingofalldems]

14. Trump Secret Pardon trolls not liking this one.

Kick and rec.

[wryter2000]

51. I can't wait to hear the list of who they are

We can guess at a lot of them, of course.

[Kingofalldems]

61. I don't believe there are any.

[intheflow]

16. 18.7 million : 3.25 million

Seems like an awful lot more people are interested in the hearings than are interested in whatever bullshit Fox was spinning.

I'd like to add, so many of my friends and coworkers in their 20s and 30s don't have it in their cultural DNA to watch hearing on tv networks. They'll be watching clips or a recording of the full hearings in the next few days. As I type, YouTube videos of the whole hearing from the major networks have

ABC: 200,000 views
NBC: 518.5
CBS: 121.5
PBS: 839,000

That's another 1,679,000 million viewers right there. It's going to be bootlegged and spread around other video streaming platforms. And interest is only going to grow from here.

[Mr.Bill]

37. I was visiting kids and grandkids last week (all of voting age)

and none of them were even aware that Tuesday was a primary elecion in the state of California. I asked them if they got ballots in the mail and they said they didn't know.

[elleng]

17. What about PBS?

Would each 'local' station be assessed separately? What'd WETA get? (DC area)

[Delphinus]

28. I watched them

but Judy needed to pay more attention to when things were starting. I'm there to hear the Committee not her.

[Just_Vote_Dem]

52. The 2 South Florida PBS stations didn't air it

Figures.

[elleng]

53. DAMN!

[Just_Vote_Dem]

54. My feelings exactly

[Kaleva]

19. Out of 250-some million adults in the country, about 20 million watched the hearing

Fox News, which did not air the hearings, got its usual 3 million viewers.

While ABC News, NBC News and CBS News routinely crush Fox News in the ratings, the good news is that the broadcast networks drew in millions to watch the hearing in primetime.

[empedocles]

22. Bringing in their customary viewers

[doc03]

23. I don't think the Fox News cult can be reached no

matter what, lost cause.

[Dr. Jack]

41. Na but only about 1.5% of voters watch Fox

That might not show their full extent of their influence but at the end of the day, not many American are really watching Fox.

[empedocles]

27. Network news, etc., seem to have swung many viewers into supporting Ukraine.

Influenced numbers of repubicon pols. Ukraine has big support.

[Roc2020]

24. Add in streaming and

other outlets Nielson cannot or do not include it's probably closer to 30 million households. That's a lot of people.

[Pinback]

26. "Don't Forget the Lyrics" - perfect

alternative programming for Fox viewers, since they’re all about singing off the same sheet of music.

[llmart]

32. I watched on PBS as did quite a few of my family and friends.

I get PBS over the air with an antenna. Not everyone has cable. Their coverage was incredible.

This is extremely good news. Think about all the options these millions of people had to watch anything other than the hearing, with streaming services like Netflix etc., at prime time no less, and these numbers are even more remarkable. Back when the Watergate hearings were held, most of us had only four stations to choose from.

We all need to talk up what we saw and heard and keep beating that drum of how evil the Republicans are, not just tfg. Their party stood by and allowed him to do whatever they wanted while he was in office. Let's not forget how they would not vote to impeach him (twice).

[Tomconroy]

33. I'm disappointed.

[dflprincess]

34. Plus CSPAN & PBS nt

[Wounded Bear]

35. Sounds like we got a lot of eyeballs on it...

[fierywoman]

38. I watched on Meidas Touch.

[Mickju]

46. So did I.

I thought the discussion afterwards was mostly excellent.

[Dr. Jack]

39. The article I read said the 20 million is just from tv networks

They said they expect the actual number of those who watched online to add significantly to the total number of viewers. It seems to have been a major event.

[Septua]

40. I was hoping for 50 million but...

..will take the 20. What I'd like to know now is how many people were converted from Big Lie believers to democracy supporters.

[Dr. Jack]

42. 20 million is just from those watching on TV

The number who watched online is expected to make that number significantly higher than 20 million once that aspect is calculated

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/3519284-nearly-20m-watched-jan-6-hearing-nielsen/

[uponit7771]

48. 20% of superbowl audience not counting online is viewership most ad would give their right eye for.

[ancianita]

43. Thank you! 20 million was the superbowl of politics, and there will be millions more viewers

through November and/or until the DOJ has made its prosecutorial decisions per its collective oath to protect & defend the Constitution. Whichever comes first.

Since no one is above the law, and the DOJ has the goods on 16 for seditious conspiracy, it's got the goods on the fraud perpetrated on the nation by Trump and his inner circle.

If the DOJ fails, democracy fails.

[Liberal In Texas]

44. The Fox broadcast station here, which is an O&O, aired the hearing.

I was dialing around a bit and was surprised that the Fox station was running the hearing live.

[moose65]

60. The Fox network and Fox News are two different things

Fox News (cable channel) didn’t broadcast the hearing. Obviously some of the Fox network stations (broadcast) did.

[uponit7771]

47. That's nearly ***10%*** of US adult population !!

[rainin]

49. I watched on youtube. I bet the numbers are vastly underestimated. n/t

[wryter2000]

50. Let's make sure they all vote

I'll be calling voters until November.

[TeamProg]

57. K&R Thanks for posting. n/t

[KS Toronado]

59. If my math is correct

FQX only had a 13.8% of TV viewership last night, don't know what their average is but thought it was
higher. Believe a lot of Rs wanted to see it live with actual words.

[Kingofalldems]

62. And a big blow to the 'Trump never loses' crew.

They're here every day.

[Tree Lady]

63. I actually switched from ABC to CBS

Because ABC had a commercial in the middle of Cheney talking. I watched ABC last time no commercials. Made me wonder if it was local because I live in conservative area.

[Blue Owl]

65. Suck it Donny you bloated fuck