TV Ratings for Jan. 6 Hearing Are In: Viewers Changed the Channel in Droves

TV Ratings for Jan. 6 Hearing Are In: Viewers Changed the Channel in Droves: Americans would have wanted to hear some straightforward news, according to the ratings for Thursday night’s prime-time session by the House panel examining the Capitol incursion that occurred on January 6, 2021.

A distinct pattern emerged once Newsbusters’ ratings were analyzed and shared with others.

Every single one of the three major broadcast networks that showed the hearing at the end of the day ended up with a smaller audience than they would have had they simply supplied the news programming that was typical for them.

For instance, ABC’s harvest of 4.35 million people for the hearing may sound great, but based on numbers from the week of June 1, it typically pulls 7.4 million viewers for “World News Tonight.”

The same pattern was observed on NBC, where the novelty of a prime-time hearing resulted in 3.31 million viewers. This number represents approximately half of the 6.06 million viewers who typically watch the news on NBC. On CBS, the show “Curiosity” was only able to pull in 3.24 million viewers, which is much lower than the network’s nightly average of 4.3 million people.

The decision to broadcast the hearing instead of the news particularly alienated those in the age bracket of 18 to 49 years old. There were an average of 596,000 viewers within that age range that tuned in to the hearings across all of the networks. On the other hand, an average of 996,000 viewers would tune in to watch the news each night.

The fact that the media allowed itself to be used as a publicity tool for the hearing, as stated by Tucker Carlson of Fox News, was “a day that will live in shame in the history of the American news business,” Carlson stated. Fox News was the only major network that did not devote its evening to the hearing.

According to Carlson, officials in the media, Democratic Party leaders, and President Joe Biden are collaborating in an effort to divert Americans’ attention away from the most pressing problem facing the country, which is inflation.

Carlson accused the media of being “complicit in a conspiracy to confuse the public,” with the goal of “making you feel that your personal issues like the fact that you can’t purchase food or drive anyplace or the fact that the police won’t come because they can’t afford gas, those are not relevant.”

According to what he stated, both the media and Democrats are attempting to indoctrinate American citizens.

“You have to pretend that January 6, 2021, remains the single worst thing that has ever happened to America, even though not one living person really believes that, and if you don’t say so, if you don’t confess the one true faith in public, you’ll be hurt,” he wrote. “You have to pretend that January 6, 2021, remains the single worst thing ever to happen to America.”

According to Carlson, Democrats have turned to distractions as a strategy since inflation is a problem for which there is no cure.

Therefore, record inflation is expected to remain for some time. That is the reason why they are talking about January 6 at primetime,” he added. “If you want to know why, that is why.”