SCOTUS nominee broadcast rakes in more than 33 million viewers
LOS ANGELES -- More than 33 million viewers watched President Donald Trump reveal his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The sizeable audience may reflect how Trump handled Tuesday’s announcement, using his skills honed as a reality TV host on “The Apprentice” to showcase Neil Gorsuch.
Unlike past such announcements, this one wasn’t leaked earlier to reporters and was made in prime time.
The audience edged that for President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address last year, 31.3 million. But it was dwarfed by the 56.5 million that saw Obama announce the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, among the decade’s most-watched presidential speeches.
On Tuesday, CBS was the overall leader and among broadcast networks with 7.97 million viewers, followed by Fox News Channel with 7.56 million, according to Nielsen company figures.
Among other broadcasters, NBC was second with 5.9 million, followed by ABC with 5.18 million and Fox with 2.38 million.
For the cable networks, CNN drew 2.03 million viewers, MSNBC had 1.57 million and Fox Business Network had 609,000.