Media

Fox News, CNN claim victories in Sessions hearing coverage

by Joe Concha - 06/14/17 4:25 PM ET

Fox News captured the most total viewers during Attorney General Jeff Sessions afternoon testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, while CNN won in the valuable 25- to 54-year-old demographic, according to Early Nielsen Media Research.

In the hours of the Sessions testimony on Capitol Hill from 2:30 to 5:15 p.m., Fox delivered 3.2 million viewers compared to CNN’s 2.218 million and MSNBC’s 2.208 million.

During the Sessions testimony, CNN led with 614,000 viewers in the 25-to-54 demographic advertisers covet most. Fox was second with 476,000 and MSNBC third with 437,000 in the category.

{mosads}In prime time that included extended live coverage until midnight on Tuesday evening, Fox swept both the total viewers and 25-to-54 demographic categories. From 8 p.m. to midnight, the 21st Century-owned network averaged 2.887 million total viewers and had 584,000 in the demographic.

MSNBC was second, with 2.409 million total viewers and 575,000 in the demographic, while CNN took third place, with a 1.129 million/422,000 split.

In a typical primetime window of 8 to 11 p.m., MSNBC won in the demographic with 620,000 viewers to Fox’s 592,000. In total viewers, Fox beat MSNBC 2.887 to 2.609 million.

The daily drama of the President Trump era continues to be ratings gold for all three of the major cable news networks, with combined viewing of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN up 33 percent through the first week of June compared to the same time in 2016, according to data from Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser.

Fox finished May as the top-rated cable news network in both total viewers and the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic, edging out a surging MSNBC, which has seen the best ratings in its 21-year history this year.

Tags Fox News Jeff Sessions MSNBC NBCUniversal Television