Day one impeachment hearings draw 13.1M viewers, down 32 percent from Comey hearings

Day one of impeachment proceedings was watched by nearly 13.1 million people across multiple broadcast and cable outlets, which was notably lower than other high-profile televised hearings in the Trump era, but on par with Robert Mueller’s testimony on Capitol Hill in July. 

The 13,098,000 who tuned in on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN and PBS marks a 32 percent drop from the number of people who watched James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in May 2017, which delivered more than 19 million viewers. 

In February, former Trump personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony delivered 15.8 million viewers, while 13 million tuned in to see former special counsel Robert Mueller testify before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees.{mosads}

All audience numbers are according to Nielsen Media Research.

House intelligence hearings continue on Friday, with all major broadcast and cable news networks preempting all programming. 

Impeachment hearings for President Nixon in 1973 were also covered live on a rotating basis by the major broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, while PBS carried the proceedings wall-to-wall for more than 250 hours.

For context when compared to 2019, 71 percent of Americans watched the Nixon impeachment hearings live, according to Gallup.