Fox News Dominates Cable News Coverage Of Trump-Kim Summit, Hannity Draws 5.9 Million
Monday night brought the start of the historic Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, with the meeting beginning during the primetime hours and running through the late-evening and early-morning hours here in the states. And the network of choice to watch the coverage was Fox News and the program of choice belonged to Trump-supporting host Sean Hannity.
According to Nielsen, Fox News averaged a robust 4.897 million total viewers and 1.193 million in the key 25-54 demographic during the 8 PM to 11 PM primetime hours. CNN attracted 742,000 in the demo and 1.948 million viewers overall. MSNBC pulled in a demo audience of 494,000 and a total viewership of 2.378 million.
Fox’s Hannity not only dominated all of cable news but ended up as the most-watched telecast in televison Monday evening in total viewers as it drew an eye-popping 5.902 million viewers and 1.486 million in the key demo. That meant that Hannity actually beat ABC’s The Bachelorette head-to-head, which pulled in 5.5 million total viewers. Also, this represented the biggest audience Hannity has drawn since moving back to 9 PM.
Comparatively, during the 9 PM hour, CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time brought in a demo audience of 904,000 and 2.362 million viewers overall. MSNBC’s Special Coverage nabbed a total viewership of 2.378 million and 494,000 in the demographic.
Fox’s 10 PM program, The Ingraham Angle, was the second most-watched cable news broadcast of the day, averaging 1.1 million in the 25-54 demo and 4.560 million total viewers. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, which aired right before the Trump and Kim meeting, was third in both total viewers (4.222 million) and the demo (993,000).
As for the business channels, Fox Business led CNBC in total viewers during its primetime summit coverage, drawing 279,000 viewers to CNBC’s 189,000. CNBC led in the demographic, averaging 64,000 to FBN’s 41,000.
Hannity is likely expecting another big ratings number Tuesday night as he will air his interview with Trump that was conducted right after the summit.
