WASHINGTON — According to preliminary Nielsen data, approximately 20 million Americans tuned in to Thursday’s hearing about the House investigation into the Jan. 6, attack on Capitol.
Nielsen pointed out that, despite the varied coverage, 12 networks carried the hearing live from 8-10 p.m. ET.
According to TVLine, nearly 5 million people watched the hearings on ABC. NBC had 3.6 million viewers, and CBS had 3.4 million.
TVLine reported that more than 4 million viewers viewed the MSNBC hearing and nearly 2.6 million watched it on CNN.
TVLine reported that Fox News, although it didn’t cover this two-hour hearing at all, had an average of about 3 million viewers over that time. According to a Deadline report, that’s roughly the audience of their primetime audience for the week.
Comparatively to Thursday night’s audience, President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in March at the beginning of March attracted 38 million viewers. In contrast, the first day of the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in the Senate in February 2021 attracted 11 million viewers.