Impeachment Hearings Viewership Strong For Very Long Day 3; Fox News Wins Again

Dominic Patten

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Soon after Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s finished his testimony on the third day of the impeachment hearings yesterday, Republican Devin Nunes declared the ratings for were “way down, way down” and the whole affair was losing traction with the American public.

Well, the ranking GOP member of the House Intelligence Committee was very wrong in his characterization Tuesday of the dip between Day 1 and Day 2 of the widely televised inquiry. However, when it comes to the long third day of the probe into Donald Trump’s alleged leveraging of millions in aid to Ukraine for domestic political concerns, the highly partisan Rep. Nunes was incorrect again.

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Filled with moving statements from White House assigned Lt. Col Vindman and contentious testimony from and VP Mike Pence aide Jennifer Williams, Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, an ex-National Security Council official, the Rep. Adam Schiff run proceedings held the nation’s attention …or at least their eyeballs.

With Fox News Channel (2.5 million) coming in first in overall day viewership yet again over a bouncing MSNBC, the impeachment hearings averaged audiences of 11.4 million for its morning session and 13 million for its afternoon stint. Broadcast live on FNC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC, the hearing’s latter 3:30 – 5:45 PM ET session actually bested the four-hour morning testimony on Day 2 of the hearings by ex-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. That November 15 session pulled in around 12.7 million viewers, a dip of 3% from the opening day testimony on November 13.

Fourth in the 25-54 news demo behind NBC (468,000), ABC (444,000) and CBS (379,000), the Murdoch-owned Fox News was first in viewers for the 9 AM – 1:45 PM ET coverage yesterday with 2.3 million tuning in. MSNBC was second in viewers with 2.2 million, followed by ABC (1.9 million), CBS (1.74 million), NBC (1.71 million) and CNN (1.6 million).

Coming after Lt. Col Vindman captured the nation’s heart and respect with his patriotic testimony in the morning, the approximant 3:30 – 5:45 PM ET slot saw the Comcast-owned MSNBC top FNC with 2.53 million to the latter’s 2.51 million total audience. NBC proper was next with 2.16 million, then Disney-owned ABC with 2.07 million, CBS with 1.9 million and WarnerMedia-run CNN last with 1.71 million.

Like the morning session, NBC (531,000) was first among the 25-54s in the afternoon on Tuesday. ABC (493,000) was second again, CBS (458,000) third, and FNC (374,000) fourth. CNN (350,000) bopped up to fifth in the news demo, while most overall watched MSNBC (349,000) was a close sixth, according to Nielsen.

Current U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. and star witness Gordon Sondland just finished his stint in the hot chair right now – with online commentary from POTUS.

The big Trump donor is expected to be followed after a break by well positioned Pentagon and State Department officials as today’s hearing goes almost right up to tonight’s Democratic debate live from Atlanta – and guess what Joe Biden and crew will be talking about?

Yep.

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