Nearly 19 million viewers watched the first hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol – a measurable success for the Democratic-led group of lawmakers hoping their inquiry would catch his eye. Score data released on Friday showed that some 18.8 million people on the six major US broadcaster networks that aired the program live on Thursday night. Preliminary data comes from the Nielsen rating agency and does not include the millions more who watched the hearing on streaming apps or social media, where many testimonials went viral. The major broadcast networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – have rolled out their popular prime-time entertainment programs to broadcast, without interruption, from 8am to 10pm Eastern time, as well as cable news channels such as CNN and MSNBC. ABC had the largest audience, with almost 4.9 million viewers in total, followed by MSNBC, NBC and CBS and CNN. The only major television news network that did not cover the hearing was Fox News, whose conservative opinion leaders tried to counter-program it – glaring at the audiences, while they and their guests vehemently praised her efforts. “The most boring, the most boring, there is absolutely nothing new, long-running Democratic fundraising disguised as a Jan. 6 hearing,” said Fox presenter Sean Hannity.) Instead, Fox sent two of its news presenters to host an audition on the much less-watched sister channel Fox Business Network, which attracted 223,000 viewers as opposed to the 3 million who watched Fox News. Viewers who tuned in to the hearing saw videos they had never seen since the day’s massacre, interviews with witnesses conducted by the panel, and excerpts of remarkable audio from key players. Some moments from the hearing continued to make headlines and catch the eye on Friday, as Ivanka Trump’s recorded testimony told investigators that she did not believe the election had been stolen. The hearings – there will be many more after Thursday’s debut, though not all on time – have been compared to previous congressional committee meetings that have captivated audiences, such as the 1973 Watergate Senate hearing and the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. But the media industry has changed dramatically since then. Fifty years ago, most Americans regularly watched one of the three major broadcast networks. Now, a smaller group of viewers is divided between many broadcast channels, cable channels and myriad of digital platforms, many of which offer the public the opportunity to watch auditions in bite-sized clips. Viewers who flipped through the channels found striking uniformity in the presentation of the audition, with the networks maintaining mostly a camera without looking at the committee’s work, distinguishing themselves only by selecting presenters and experts to analyze the hearing after its completion at 10 p.m. Those in charge of television had particularly high expectations for Thursday’s show, given the behind-the-scenes role played by former ABC News chairman James Golston, who helped improve the committee’s presentation to the television audience. “The tone was sober. The thematic midline was tight and focused. “The timeline video was difficult to watch, but not exploitative, in my opinion,” said Andrew Heyward, former head of CBS News. “Overall, I felt that the production enhanced the gravity of the moment without making it feel.” Industry observers have expressed some skepticism about viewership, given the trends of recent decades. While about 71 percent of Americans told Gallup they watched some of Watergate’s hearings live in 1973, the first televised hearing of Donald Trump’s first referral trial attracted only about 13 million viewers in 2019, although it aired starting in the morning. which was watched less. hours. The testimony of former Attorney General Robert S. Mueller III in July 2019 also attracted nearly 13 million viewers, which was a shame for the 19.5 million viewers who watched the testimony of former FBI Director James B. Comey in 2017. While believing Thursday night’s listening was exciting television, industry analyst Brad Adgate cited both the increased polarization and the proliferation of new video services to explain the fall from the Watergate-era high viewership. The committee’s second hearing is scheduled for Monday morning at 10 a.m., giving it a lower TV profile. “It will be difficult to maintain numbers in the future, but I expect a fairly large audience and a lot of buzz on social media,” Adgate said.
