NEW YORK _ Former FBI Director James Comey's highly anticipated testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee was watched by an estimated 20 million television viewers Thursday, according to Nielsen data provided by the networks.
The figure for the hearing, touted as "Washington's Super Bowl," includes viewers across all ad-supported broadcast and cable networks that carried it from 10 a.m. to around 1 p.m. Eastern time. It does not count people who watched at viewing parties at bars and restaurants or through online streaming on computers and digital devices.
Nielsen will release an official total later Friday.
Cable news networks CNN, Fox News and MSNBC typically broadcast congressional hearings. But Comey's session _ in which he called President Donald Trump a liar _ was a bona fide major media spectacle and received live coverage across the four major broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
The broadcast network carriage boosted the ratings for the hearing, but its weekday morning airtime limited the size of the audience available to watch on TV.
There is no official total for online viewing, as many outlets don't disclose their streaming numbers. CNN said its online audience peaked at 11:35 a.m. Eastern, with 767,000 simultaneous users watching its coverage, an indication that it was a significant audience across all available streams. CNN said there were 3.9 million "starts" to its online stream of the testimony.
The last major news event carried across both broadcast and cable networks was the Jan. 20 inauguration of Trump, which had an average audience of 30.6 million TV viewers.
Thursday's testimony made for some dramatic television. Those who tuned saw Comey tell the committee that Trump tried to impede an FBI probe into his fired national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with a Russian ambassador during the new administration's transition. Comey, who was dismissed by Trump on May 9, also accused the president and his administration of lying about him and defaming the FBI.
Comey's testimony raised the possibility that Trump could be investigated for obstruction of justice.
ABC had the largest audience, with 3.295 million viewers, followed by CBS (3.286 million viewers), Fox News (3.096 million), CNN (3.049 million), NBC (2.73 million), MSNBC (2.719 million), Fox Business Network (210,000) and CNBC (164,000). The hearing was also carried by PBS and was offered to Fox broadcast affiliates, which had the option to air it. Ratings for those outlets were not available.
