UPDATED with NBC News data: Fox News Channel attracted more viewers than broadcast and cable news networks on Thursday when Attorney General Bill Barr took the podium to spin, then release, special counsel Robert Mueller’s report about his nearly two years investigation into Russian election meddling and Trump campaign rannygazoo.
Fox News Channel averaged 2.8 million viewers between 9:30 AM ET and 1 PM ET. That includes 441K in the 25-54 news demo.
FNC outlapped MSNBC (2.0M, 307K) and CNN (1.2M, 286K).
FNC also edged out CBS’ 2.5M viewers, ABC 2.2M, as well as NBC’s broadcast-leading 2.9Mviewers during that mid-day period when Barr spun and TV news talking heads poured over Mueller’s 400+-page report and discussed.
As of Friday, ABC and CBS logged bigger crowds in the news demo than did FNC: ABC averaged 493K viewers in the 25-54 age bracket, CBS 471K and FNC 441K.
NBC now leads in this metric with 615K viewers.
NBC broadcast network’s 9:30 AM-1 PM ET numbers were not released on Friday, when data for the other networks were available. That’s because it does not provide Nielsen with info the ratings-crunching firm needs to churn out early Nielsen numbers – aka “fasties” – media outlets crave in covering TV news ratings performances during big-news events.
Fox News Channel also dominated the cable news competition in primetime Thursday night. FNC averaged 3.2 million total viewers, including 591K in the news demo, from 8-11 PM ET.
FNC outran CNN (1.1M, 315K) and MSNBC (2.6M, 445K).
FNC’s primetime pro-Trump opinionators also clocked a larger crowd than did NBC (2.2M), and Fox broadcast network (2.4M), in primetime Thursday night, both with non-Mueller programming.
Must Read Stories
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.