Even having the president on for a prime-time appointment couldn’t keep CNN from finishing behind both Fox News Channel and MSNBC.
Deadline reported Thursday that CNN’s town-hall meeting this week with President Biden drew barely half the audience Fox News did and couldn’t even best MSNBC’s regular lineup.
Overnight Nielsen ratings for the hours during which Mr. Biden was on CNN from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Wednesday showed CNN drawing just 1.46 million viewers, Deadline reported.
In that same time, Fox News averaged 2.76 million viewers with an episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and the first part of a special “Hannity” program.
Sean Hannity’s town-hall meeting on the Cuban democracy protests featured Florida lawmakers — Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Maria Salazar and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.
MSNBC’s regular programming for those hours — “All in with Chris Hayes” and the first part of “The Rachel Maddow Show” — averaged 1.47 million viewers, just outdrawing Mr. Biden.
The numbers for Wednesday night’s Biden town-hall, which was moderated by Don Lemon, were also a huge drop-off from the last CNN town-hall meeting featuring the president.
Wednesday’s audience of 1.46 million is less than half the 3.5 million CNN drew with a forum in February.
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