An audience of at least 20 million people watched the first prime-time hearing of the House Select Committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on Thursday night, according to Nielsen.
By scheduling a congressional hearing for 8 to 10 p.m., committee members and Democrats were hoping to make the case to the biggest audience possible. ABC, CBS and NBC pre-empted their prime-time programming and went into special-report mode to cover it live.
Though the Thursday night figure pales next to presidential debates (63 million to 73 million) or this year’s State of the Union address (38 million), it’s still much larger than the audience that would normally watch a daytime congressional hearing. And it’s in the ballpark of television events like a big “Sunday Night Football” game or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
ABC attracted the biggest audience, with 5.2 million viewers. NBC and CBS each had an audience of more than…
