January 6 Committee Primetime Hearing Watched By Estimated 20 Million Viewers

Ted Johnson
·2 min read
5

UPDATE: An estimated 20 million people watched the January 6th Committee primetime hearing across 12 networks, according to Nielsen.

The audience breakdown showed viewership among those 55+ was 15.2 million viewers. An estimated 3.6 million viewers watched in the 35-54 category, and 834,000 among 18-34 year olds.

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The figures include out of home viewing and connected TV viewing. It does not include PBS, which carried the hearing but has a different data delivery timing.

By contrast, Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in March drew about 38 million viewers. But viewers also were likely exposed to portions of the hearing via social media clips and news coverage following the event.

PREVIOUSLY: The January 6th Committee’s first primetime hearing drew more that 19 million viewers across nine networks in early ratings figures, with the expectation that it will surpass 20 million when final figures are released later today.

The committee claimed that Donald Trump was “at the center” of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results. The two-hour event drew coverage across broadcast and cable networks, and was an attempt by the committee to command attention of the public to the January 6th attack on the Capitol and what they say is an ongoing threat to democracy.

According to the preliminary results, ABC drew 4.88 million viewers, followed by MSNBC with 4.16 million, NBC with 3.56 million, CBS with 3.37 million, CNN with 2.62 million, Fox Business Network with 223,128, CNBC with 158,439, Newsmax with 137,268 and NewsNation with 59,580. The numbers are from Nielsen and were released by Fox News.

Fox News Channel did not carry the hearing and instead stuck with its primetime lineup of opinion hosts. Fox News averaged 2.83 million viewers from 8 PM ET to 11 PM ET. Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum instead anchored coverage on Fox Business Network. They later appeared along with Shannon Bream on a two hour late night special, from 11 PM to 1 AM, drawing 1.3 million viewers.

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