Fox News’ Donald Trump Town Hall Draws More Live Cable Viewers Against CNN’s Nikki Haley-Ron DeSantis Iowa Debate

Ted Johnson
·3 min read
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UPDATE: Fox News’ town hall with former President Donald Trump drew 4.4 million viewers, drawing a larger audience in the 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET time frame than CNN’s debate featuring the former president’s two main Republican rivals, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

CNN’s averaged 2.7 million viewers during the first hour of the debate at 9 p.m. ET. During the full two hour event, CNN averaged 2.62 million viewers

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In the 25-54 demo, Fox News averaged 576,000 for the one-hour town hall, compared to 515,000 for CNN. Over the event’s full two hours, CNN’s debate coverage averaged 541,000. The network said earlier that it beat its rivals in the demo in an apples-to-apples comparison of the 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET time frame.

At 9 p.m. ET, MSNBC averaged 1.29 million with Alex Wagner Tonight and, in the 10 p.m. ET hour, averaged 1.68 million for its debate/town hall analysis. In the 25-54 demo, Wagner’s show averaged 143,000, and the 10 p.m. hour averaged 172,000. The Trump town hall was the highest rated cable news telecast of 2024 — so far. All of the news networks are banking on an uptick in ratings with this year’s presidential election.

The Fox News town hall also drew 902,000 viewers in a midnight Et re-airing and 506,000 in a 2 a.m. ET repeat, bringing the total to 5.8 million.

PREVIOUSLY: Fox News’ town hall with former President Donald Trump drew a higher viewership than CNN’s coverage of the Iowa presidential debate featuring former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, according to initial viewership figures.

The town hall went up against the first hour of the CNN debate and drew 4.3 million viewers, compared to 2.58 million for the Haley-DeSantis faceoff. For the full two hours, the debate averaged 2.5 million, according to the figures, which are from Nielsen via Fox News and CNN. MSNBC averaged 1.25 million.

CNN pointed out that it beat its rivals in the 25-54 demo over the 9 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. time frame, averaging 509,000, compared to compared to 448,000 for Fox News and 139,000 for MSNBC. In the 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET time frame, Fox News averaged 553,000, compared to 478,000 for CNN and 127,000 for MSNBC.

CNN also said that its debate reached 6.37 million viewers on TV and CNN Max, combining the Nielsen figures with their internal CNN Max data.

Fox News, meanwhile, said its midnight replay of the town hall averaged 877,000 viewers and a 2 a.m. ET replay received 496,000.

Final figures will be released later on Thursday afternoon.

Fox News’ coverage of the first debate drew about 12.8 million viewers.

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