Nearly 20 million people watched the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot’s first prime time hearing , according to preliminary ratings from Nielsen.
Every major network played the hearing, which started at 8 pm EST to 10 pm EST. ABC won the most winners, with 4.8m viewers turning into its broadcast. James Goldston, a former president of ABC News helped the committee. NBC came in second place with 3.5m viewers and CBS received 3.3m viewers.
On the cable news side, MSNBC dominated, with 4.1m viewers tuning into the liberal-leaning network, while CNN came in third place with 2.6m viewers.
The conservative Fox News channel came in second place as the network chose not to air the hearing live but instead chose to feature Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham’s regularly-scheduled programming.
The hearings featured testimony from Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards and journalist Nicholas Quested, who was with the Proud Boys on the day of January 6.
Chairman Bennie Thompson and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney included video testimony from Trump administration officials, including former Attorney General William Barr, as well as former president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
House Republican Leadership for their part criticised the broadcasting on prime time television. But the ratings were better than the 9m who watched on an average day of Mr Trump’s impeachment trial.
The numbers do not include viewers who watched the hearing on YouTubeTV or other streaming platforms.
