The historic launch of Artemis II drew an audience of over 18 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
Per Nielsen, the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission on Wednesday, April 1, which aired from approximately 6:00 p.m. ET to 6:30 p.m. ET, brought in an estimated 18.1 million viewers in the U.S. across several broadcast and cable news networks. Those networks included ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, CNN, FOX News Channel and MS NOW.
For comparison, Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in February, which was one of the more recent events broadcast across the major broadcast and cable news networks, scored 32.6 million viewers as it broadcast across 15 linear networks.
While the launch was broadcast across the linear networks, the baton was handed off to the streamers for the lunar flyby on Monday. Beginning of Monday morning, the flyby began streaming on NASA’s YouTube channel, NASA+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max and Roku.
Coverage for the flyby kicked off at 1 p.m. ET and extends throughout Monday, with the stream including remarks from the crew and the predicted loss of communication as the crew heads to the moon, which is estimated to last roughly 40 minutes. The Artemis II will culminate through the lunar observation period and the solar eclipse period, with NASA+ coverage is estimated to conclude around 9:45 p.m. ET.
For the full information about what benchmarks will be hit during the lunar flyby and where to watch the event, check out NASA’s website here.
