GOTTA HURT

MSNBC Jan. 6 Hearing Coverage Beats Fox News’ Regular Lineup in Ratings

Overall, 20 million people watched the first primetime hearing across multiple networks with a mere 223,000 watching on Fox Business, which—unlike Fox News—carried the event.

Fox News’ decision not to air the first January 6th committee hearing in primetime Thursday night seems to have backfired, at least from a ratings perspective, as the usual first place network fell to behind MSNBC, which led the cable news ratings with 4.1 million viewers, according to early Nielsen numbers. Fox’s counterprogramming from Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity drew an average of 3 million viewers while CNN came in third with 2.6 million despite also showing the hearing in full. Overall, at least 20 million people watched the first hearing across multiple networks, with ABC in the lead with 4.8 million viewers. NBC and CBS followed with 3.5 million and 3.3 million, respectively. Fox Business, which did air coverage of the hearings anchored by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, pulled in a mere 223,000.