Nearly 20 Million Viewers Watched The Jan. 6 Hearing In Prime Time, Eclipsing Trump’s Impeachment Trials

The first prime time installment of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was broadcast live on Thursday, a relatively fast paced two-hour program including damning opening statements about Donald Trump’s activities during the insurrection, never-before-seen video clips and taped testimony from some of the former president’s closest aides.

The committee laid the blame for the violence at the Capitol squarely on Trump, who “spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chair of the committee.

TV viewing in June is lower than the winter months and with no serious competition on the schedule (the NBA Finals had an off day), preliminary audience figures approached 20 million viewers, which will increase as more networks are tabulated and out-of-home and time-shifted viewing are added. The audience is more than double the highest rated regularly scheduled primetime program this year.

It was televised by all of the prominent cable news and broadcast networks with the exception of Fox News. The hearing was on Fox Business, streamed on Fox Nation and Fox broadcast stations had the option of showing the event. But Fox News, the top-rated cable network, opted to continue with its regularly scheduled programming, including Tucker Carlson Tonight at 8 p.m. — commercial free to minimize channel surfing.

During the first hour of the hearing, Carlson claimed rival networks were colluding with the House by showing the testimony. Carlson mentioned other topics during his telecast more worthy of a congressional investigation, such as inflation, high gas prices, violent crime in cities and drug overdoses.

In May, Carlson’s program averaged 3.2 million viewers at 8 p.m. and Sean Hannity the lead-out show averaged 2.7 million at 9 p.m. On Thursday, Fox News ratings were on par with May, averaging 3 million viewers in the 8-10 p.m. ET time period when the congressional hearings were televised.

The video landscape has been altered significantly in recent years as younger viewers migrate away from linear TV dropping their cable subscriptions for streaming video. Older adults continue to be heavier TV watchers especially for newscasts, which have a median age of 60+. Younger age groups watch video highlights and read social media posts.

Unlike the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings, which became a seminal moment for many Baby Boomers living during a three-network TV universe, the Jan. 6 hearing is unlikely to sway many younger viewers who have grown up in a contentious political climate with regular accusations of fake news.

During the first 50 years of television, there had only been a handful of live congressional hearings on broadcast television. There was Kefauver-interstate gambling (1951), Army-McCarthy (1954), Watergate (1973), Iran-Contra (1987), Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas (1991) and Clinton impeachment (1998).

Since 2015 Donald Trump has been a ratings juggernaut for cable news networks and the news division of broadcast television. Now seven years later and 17 months since he left office, the actions of the former President continue to attract eyeballs to the television set. As a result, news networks have been dominating cable ratings and broadcasters have more aggressively covered live congressional hearings.

Over the past five years televised congressional hearings aired live on cable and broadcast television include; FBI director James Comey (2017), Christine Blasey Ford-Brett Kavanaugh (2018), Michael Cohen (2019), Robert Mueller (2019), Trump’s first impeachment (2020) and his second (2021). Most of these hearings were shown during the daytime, when fewer people are generally watching TV.

When compared to recent televised congressional hearings, the audience was bigger than Trump’s first and second impeachment trials. They were more in line with the testimony of James Comey and confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.

Congressional hearings: Former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress in June 2017 and averaged 19.5 million viewers on three cable news, three broadcast networks and other smaller networks. Comey’s testimony lasted for roughly three hours beginning at 10 a.m. (ET).

The testimony of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen in February 2019 aired live across three broadcast television and three cable news networks. The testimony started at 9:45 a.m. (ET) and lasted into late afternoon. Cohen’s testimony totaled nearly 16 million viewers.

In July 2019, the broadcast and cable news networks televised live of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s congressional testimony. Coverage began at 8:15 a.m. (ET) and lasted into the afternoon hours. Collectively, the six averaged nearly 13 million viewers.

Supreme Court confirmation hearings: The often-contentious Brett Kavanaugh hearings in September 2018 included testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey. The three cable news networks and three broadcast networks televised the hearings for almost nine hours delivering a combined TV average audience of 20.4 million viewers.

The Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in October 1991 also produced strong ratings. With most of the testimony occurring during daytime, it was estimated that 27 million households tuned to the confirmation hearings in primetime on ABC and NBC. CBS was televising a postseason baseball game which averaged 9.2 million households.

Impeachment trials: The first Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump in January 2020 was televised on three broadcast and three cable news networks. The first day of the trial lasted 12-hours and averaged 11 million viewers. The second day of the trial also started just past 12 noon and ended at 9:43 p.m. (ET), and averaged 8.9 million viewers.

The first day of Trump’s second impeachment trial in February 2021 was also televised across six cable news and broadcast networks, similar to the first trial averaged 11 million viewers (excluding NBC) with live coverage occurring in the afternoon. The second day saw an increase across the same networks with 12.3 million viewers.

The Senate vote on the Bill Clinton impeachment trial was held in December 1998. The three cable news networks (which had significantly lower distribution) collectively averaged 2.2 million households. While NBC and ABC provided continued live coverage of the vote, CBS cut to televise a Saturday afternoon NFL game which easily dominated ratings with 12 million viewers doubling their network rivals.

As hinted by co-chair Lynne Cheney (R-WY) in her opening statement, when she laid out the agenda, future investigations will include further testimony from The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Trump aides from inside The White House and law enforcement officers. Cheney said the activities of Donald Trump as riots took place including social media posts will be revealed and more unseen footage at the Capitol.

The hearings will be conducted throughout the month and are similar to the storyline of a mini-series that once dominated linear television and are now prevalent on streaming video. The strategy is to create appointment viewing garnering as many viewers as possible.

Whether these hearings will have the same impact as the “Watergate Summer” of nearly 50 years ago will be a challenge. Already tens of millions of Trump supporters are already discounting the hearings before they even began. Claiming they are politically charged and a witch hunt. Nonetheless, the first hearings are being promoted as an episodic must-see TV event, which besides the NFL and a few other political events (The State of the Union address on March 1 which averaged 38.2 million viewers), has become virtually non-existent on television.