At least 20 million people, according to Nielsen, saw the first golden-time hearing of the House Select Commission’s investigation into the January 6 attack on Thursday night.
By scheduling a parliamentary inquiry from 8 pm to 10 pm, committee members and Democrats wanted to bring proceedings to as many audiences as possible. ABC, CBS and NBC have entered special report mode to anticipate prime-time shows and cover them live.
Thursday night’s numbers are inferior next to the presidential debate (63-73 million) or this year’s State of the Union address (38 million), but still far more than the audience who normally sees parliamentary hearings during the day. And it’s in the stadium for big “Sunday Night Football” games and TV events like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
ABC has 5.2 million viewers and has attracted the largest audience. NBC and CBS each had more than 3 million viewers. MSNBC attracted more than 4 million people on average, and CNN attracted 2.7 million people. (The total audience was probably a bit higher, as the 20 million figure didn’t include PBS yet.)
Viewers were almost stuck in the entire parliamentary proceedings. According to Nielsen’s 30-minute breakdown, the number of viewers on each broadcast network was stable from 8 pm to 10 pm.
Broadcast networks have abandoned prime-time entertainment, and CNN and MSNBC have provided coverage across the wall of hearings, but there have been significant outliers between cable news networks. Fox News, Cable’s hottest network, did not hold live hearings and instead stuck to the regular Golden Time lineup.
Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity dedicated the show on January 6th, both of which had live hearings on split screens, but from Congress while the hosts downplayed the Commission’s efforts. The feed has been muted.
“It’s confusing and we’re not playing together,” Carlson said of the hearing. “This is the only time on an American news channel that doesn’t broadcast propaganda live. They’re lying, and we’re not going to help them do that. Instead, we’re All you have to do is try to tell you the truth. “
Fox’s counterprogram efforts have attracted an average of 3 million viewers, which is pretty much normal.
Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum covered the live hearing, but with Fox Business. This attracts a much smaller audience. Approximately 223,000 people watched the Fox Business hearing. When Baier and MacCallum switched to Fox News for a two-hour special at 11:00 pm, an average of 1.3 million people watched it.
Local affiliates on the Fox broadcast network had the option to get a Fox Business feed, but they didn’t have to. Several major local Fox broadcasters, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, received the feed, while others broadcast regularly scheduled entertainment shows. For example, Fox Station in the New York market has chosen to run episodes of “Master Chef Junior” and “Don’t Forget the Lyrics.”