WGN’s Tuesday interview with President Donald Trump was a big get for the network, but not a big draw for audiences: Only 116,000 total viewers tuned into the 8 p.m. ET hour of the “News Nation” broadcast, when Trump’s interview aired.
Of those, 25,000 were in the advertiser-coveted age demographic of 25-to-54.
The fledgling primetime program’s three-hour average was 66,000 total viewers and 14,000 demo viewers. Comparatively, Fox News’ primetime average from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. was 4.244 million, of whom 753,000 were in the key demo. MSNBC’s average for those hours was 2.373 million. Of those 367,000 were between 25 and 54. CNN had 1.25 million total average viewers, with 324,000 in the demo.
Fox News’ 8 p.m. offering, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was the most-watched program across the board for Tuesday, averaging 4.7 million total viewers, 862,000 of whom were in the key demo.
The “News Nation” interview was significant for WGN: Prior to its airing, the Chicago Tribune posited that the presidential Q&A could “raise the profile of the nascent cable newscast.” In a follow-up review, though, the Tribune said anchor Joe Donlon interviewed Trump “softly.”
Nexstar Media Group launched “News Nation” Sept. 1 as part of a bid to bring a fresh, balance news broadcast to cable primetime. The anchor lineup was announced in June along with a promise that the program would deliver “fact-based, unbiased news coverage” with the help of Nexstar’s 5,400 journalists in 110 national newsrooms. The program airs in traditional primetime hours, from 8 p.m. ET to 11 p.m. ET and content is available around the clock on a mobile app called NewsNationNow.
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