Fox News had a larger audience for each of the five days of public testimony in the House impeachment investigation than either of the other two cable news networks.
The House Intelligence Committee heard testimony from government officials on five different days over the last two weeks. Each of the officials who testified had knowledge of President Trump’s actions in regards to foreign policy with Ukraine.
Fox News had an average of 2.5 million viewers on each of those days with 378,000 in the 25-54 age demographics, according to Nielsen media ratings. They just edged out MSNBC who posted an average of 2.48 million viewers with 347,000 in the key demo. Both of those networks dwarfed CNN’s average audience, which was 1,681,000 viewers and 375,000 in the demo.
The conservative-leaning network had Special Report’s Bret Baier, The Story’s Martha MacCallum, FOX News Sunday’s Chris Wallace, The Daily Briefing’s Dana Perino and chief White House correspondent John Roberts doing the primary coverage of the impeachment hearings. Comparatively, CNN featured Dana Bash, Gloria Borger, Anderson Cooper, and John King on their coverage and MSNBC had Nicolle Wallace, former Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, former Obama Solicitor General Neal Katyal, and George Conway, the husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.
The first two people to testify publicly were George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and William Taylor, the top diplomat in Ukraine, were the first two witnesses to publicly testify in the Democrats’ impeachment investigation.
The former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified days later. Her testimony was most notable not necessarily for what she said, but for what the president said while she was in front of the committee. Trump attacked her capabilities on Twitter and suggested that his decision to remove her was based on her abilities, but Democrats accused the president of trying to intimidate a witness.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Pence adviser Jennifer Williams, special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, former National Security Council’s former senior director for Europe and Russia Tim Morrison, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia Laura Cooper, and undersecretary of state for political affairs David Hale also testified publicly in front of the committee last week.
