Committee Hearing Draws 17.7M Viewers

The January 6th Committee’s primetime hearing drew an estimated 17.7 million viewers, an 11% dropoff from the 20 million who watched the committee’s last nighttime event in June.

Deadline reports the figures from Nielsen are across 10 networks. The committee’s June 9 hearing, kicking off its series, drew about 20 million on 11 networks.

Nielsen said that each of the eight hearings averaged 13.1 million, while the two primetime hearings averaged 18.9 million. The daytime hearings averaged 11.2 million.

Those are solid albeit not blockbuster numbers. The committee’s hearings, though, have commanded news cycles, and moments have gone viral on social media. That happened on Thursday, when the committee played a clip of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) running from the Senate floor as the mob approached on January 6. Hours earlier, Hawley had raised his fist in solidarity with the protesters.

The highest viewed daytime hearing was on June 28, drawing 13.2 million. That was the hearing featuring the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows.

While MSNBC came out on top overall with 4.7 million total viewers for the primetime airing of the eighth U.S. House special committee hearing on the Jan. 6 insurrection on Thursday, ABC was the most-viewed among the broadcast networks with an audience of 4 million. It tied with NBC for a 0.4 rating in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic.