CNN’s GOP town hall last night was the most-watched such event in cable news history. The network set town hall records in both total viewers and the key demo of adults age 25-54.
Hosted by Anderson Cooper and featuring candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, CNN’s Wisconsin Town Hall was No. 1 in prime time, averaging 3.26 million total viewers. Fox News followed with 2 million, while MSNBC finished third with 1.16 million total viewers.
CNN beat Fox News and MSNBC combined in the demo, averaging 1.06 million while FNC drew 422,000 and MSNBC averaged 292,000. FNC’s “The O’Reilly Factor” featured Eric Bolling as a replacement host because Bill O’Reilly had a scheduled day off.
It was quite a 24-hour span for CNN, as the record-breaking town hall comes on the same day the network announced the first quarter of 2016 was its most-watched in total daytime viewers since 2009.