Debate-Focused Cable TV News Viewing Rises Sharply, CNN Soars
- by Wayne Friedman , July 5, 2024
During the seven-day period during which the Presidential debate aired (June 16-23), all three major 24- hour cable TV news networks made strong weekly viewership gains in prime time -- in particular CNN. The debate was aired by more than a dozen TV networks.
CNN, which hosted the debate event, boosted its overall weekly average viewership to 1.39 million, according to Nielsen -- up more than 200% versus the week before
(464,000).
Fox News Channel and MSNBC also made strong
improvements, with Fox seeing a surge of 46% to 2.96 million and MSNBC up 35% to 1.29 million. The previous week, Fox totaled 2.03 million and MSNBC, 956,000.
Total day results showed smaller improvements, with Fox up 26% (1.57 million), MSNBC,
up 14% (769,000) and CNN rising 47% (565,000).
Compared to
the same week a year before, Fox and CNN also rocketed higher, with Fox gaining 109% and CNN up 144%. MSNBC, however, only added 9%.
For the week covering the Presidential debate, June 16-23, Fox News Channel pulled in $28.3 million in
national TV advertising, while CNN had $16.8 million; and MSNBC, 8.4 million, according to estimates from EDO Ad EnGage. For all three networks, the total was $53.4 million.
CNN aired 6,610 ad messaging during the week; MSNBC, 5,340; and Fox News
Channel, 5,120.
For the Presidential debate itself
on June 20 -- among 17 networks -- the “CNN Presidential Debate” earned 51.3 million, according to Nielsen -- down 30% from the first Presidential debate between President Biden and former
President Trump in 2020.
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