Well folks, the preliminary ratings data is in, and it turns out that the televised January
six hearings from this past Thursday evening were of course a smashing success with viewers
according to Nielsen data.
And again, this is just preliminary.
These numbers are expected to go up, but the preliminary data shows that at least 20 million
people tuned in to watch these hearings.
And of course they all beat Fox news except for one network.
I'll get to that in a moment.
Here's the numbers, uh, ABC regular ABC channel 4.8 million viewers, NBC 3.5 million viewers,
CBS 3.3 million viewers, which by the way, I was watching on CBS in case anybody cares
to know that is my network of choice, cuz in my opinion, I think they're the least biased.
Um, they're also not, uh, don't have as much corporate influence in them.
They still have some, but not as much as the others MSNBC pulled in 4.1 million viewers,
uh, which is roughly four times what they usually get on a weeknight, uh, Fox news channel
that did not run the hearings averaged about 3 million viewers during that timeframe, uh,
Fox business channel, which did show the hearings got 223,000 viewers.
So yeah, it's really no secret as to why Fox decided to put it on the business channel
instead of the main channel because 223,000 viewers, um, that's pretty pathetic.
And uh, again, the only network that did not beat Fox news and the ratings that evening.
Guess if you said CNN, you're correct.
Because even with this must watch TV event, still CNN can't beat Fox news.
Everybody else is beating Fox news.
You know, ABC, NBC MSNBC, CBS, all of them killing Fox news in the ratings that evening
CNN 2.6 million viewers, which is great for them, but still not even enough to beat regular
Fox news.
That is absolutely laughable CNN.
You've got some very real problems and I don't think you quite understand how to fix them.
But the overall point is not just to make fun of CNN, which is always a bonus.
In any story we have, the point is 20 million people tuned in actually more than 20 million
cuz the these Nielsen ratings, by the way, do not include people who were streaming it
online, watching on YouTube TV or any other, you know, streaming service like that.
That is not registered with Nielsen.
So let's assume no, let's not even assume anything.
Let's just say it's 20 million, even though we know it's more than that, let's just say
20 million.
That's a lot.
It's not as many people as tuned into the state of the union, right?
Roughly half of what tuned into that.
But 20 million people, that's a good percentage of the population folks,
A under 10%, right?
I think you're probably looking at about seven half percent of the us population was watching
this on Thursday evening.
That's massive.
And that's why, of course it is a little disappointing that these, you know, next hearings, the,
the ones earlier today and then the ones coming up on Wednesday, uh, are daytime.
The ratings on those is gonna be garbage, right?
People sitting in an office at work, having meetings, doing things like that, commuting,
they're not gonna be able to tune in.
So the ratings are gonna go way down.
That is a big mistake and I wish the committee hadn't made it.
You know, they made that decision and it was a bad one, especially seeing these ratings.
So hopefully they can jumble things a little bit.
They can move the rest of 'em to prime time.
Now that they've got a little notice for the forthcoming ones, this was a success and they
need to keep it up.