Former special counsel Robert Mueller’s nearly seven-hour testimony in front of Congress drew in an average of 12.98 million viewers on Wednesday, according to early Nielsen Media data.
Of the major networks, Fox News garnered the most viewers, as over 3 million tuned in to watch lawmakers question the prosecutor about his report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. MSNBC followed with 2.41 million, ABC with 2.12 million, NBC with 1.99 million, CBS with 1.91 million and CNN with 1.52 million. (Due to a dispute with AT&T impacting DirecTV and U-verse clients, CBS is currently unavailable in about 10 million homes.)
Little new information was gleaned from the hearing, but Mueller reiterated his report’s findings that President Donald Trump could not be exonerated of obstruction of justice–despite the president’s claims of the opposite.
Compared with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee in February, the Mueller hearing drew in 3 million fewer average viewers across the broadcast and cable news networks.