Fox News Impeachment Coverage Draws Most Viewers

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Fox News Channel drew the most viewers for the first day of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, according to early Nielsen numbers.

Over the first four hours of coverage on broadcast and cable, 1-5 p.m. Jan. 21 (1-3 p.m. for CBS, which was the extent of its live coverage), FNC had 2,654,000 viewers 2-plus, compared to number two CBS with 1,943,000. MSNBC was third at 1,909,000, followed by ABC at 1,630,000, NBC with 1,437,000, and CNN at 1,439,000.

In primetime (8-11 p.m.), when ABC, CBS and NBC had returned to regular programming, FNC was the clear leader, with 3,507,000 2-plus and 654,000 in the key news 25-54 demo, with MSNBC second with 2,530,000/490,000 and CNN third with 1,511,000/459,000.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.