More than 10 million people watched cable news as the jury
delivered a "not guilty" verdict in the George Zimmerman trial on Saturday
night, according to Nielsen ratings for July 13.
In the 10-11 p.m. hour, when the verdict was issued, CNN,
HLN, Fox News and MSNBC had a combined audience of 10.59 million viewers. Fox
News was first in total viewers with 3.68 million, followed closely by CNN's
3.4 million. Sister net HLN was third with 2.2 million viewers, followed by
MSNBC, which drew 1.3 million.
CNN was tops in the key demo, however, averaging 1.72 adults
25-54 in the 10 p.m. hour. Fox News drew 1.11 million viewers in the demo, HLN
had 980,000 and MSNBC averaged 510,000.
In late prime from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., the four
networks combined for an audience of 4.2 million viewers, with Fox News again
topping total viewers with 1.57 million and CNN leading with 668,000 viewers in
the25-54 demo.
