3.1 Million Viewers Watch CNN’s Trump Town Hall

CNN took a rare ratings victory in prime time Wednesday night, with the network’s town hall featuring former President Donald Trump drawing 3.1 million viewers, according to early overnight Nielsen ratings. From 8 p.m. t0 9:15 p.m., CNN was the most-watched cable news network, more than doubling the ratings of Fox News (1.4 million viewers) and MSNBC (1.37 million viewers).

CNN held on to first place into the 9 p.m. ET hour, with an average audience of 2.03 million viewers, just ahead of Fox News Channel’s 1.93 million viewers and MSNBC’s 1.36 million viewers. By 10 p.m. ET, CNN had fallen back into its familiar third-place slot, delivering an audience of 1.2 million viewers, compared to MSNBC’s 1.6 million viewers and FNC’s 1.8 million viewers.

In the key demographic of adults 25-54, the group most valued by advertisers, CNN dominated the 8:00 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. ET time slot, with a total audience of 703,000 viewers. MSNBC was second with 155,000 viewers and Fox News was third with 125,000 viewers. At 9:00 ET, CNN dropped to 399,000 viewers but remained in first place, with Fox News in second with 194,000 viewers and MSNBC third with 155,000 viewers. At 10 p.m. ET CNN just barely edged out Fox News for first place with 238,000 viewers, followed by FNC (236,000 viewers) and MSNBC (142,000 viewers).

Critics of CNN’s decision to give Trump more than an hour of prime time on a network he’s long disparaged as “fake news” and an “enemy of the people” said ratings were the likely motivation. Trump himself had said as much, saying on his Truth Social platform ahead of the town hall that the network had made him an offer he “couldn’t refuse” and that CNN was “desperate to get those fantastic (TRUMP!) ratings once again.”