Fox News’s DeSantis-Newsom Debate Ratings Blow Trump Town Halls Out of the Water
Fox News’s Thursday night special, “DeSantis vs. Newsom: The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate,” brought in a whopping 4.75 million average viewers.
The 90-minute debate between GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) was moderated by Sean Hannity and was Hannity’s highest-rated telecast of the year. The debate more than doubled Hannity’s average ratings of 2.25 million in November.
Hannity’s telecast also brought in a very impressive 742,000 viewers in the key 25-54 age demographic coveted by advertisers. The midnight repeat of the debate brought the total viewership of the event up to 5.4 million total viewers. Fox News crushed its cable news competition during the debate, accounting for nearly 73% of cable news’s total viewership and 77% of the cable news’s demo viewers at the time.
As far as political programming goes this year, the debate was an undeniable win for Fox and topped former President Donald Trump’s town halls. In July, Trump’s town hall with Hannity brought in some 2.9 million total viewers, which was just marginally better than the 2.8 million he brought in with Hannity in June.
Trump’s June event also brought in about half the demo’s 320,000 viewers as the DeSantis-Newsom debate.
Trump’s CNN town hall on May 10, hosted by Kaitlin Collins, scored slightly better with 3.31 million total viewers and 781,000 demo viewers, which was a major boost for the ratings-beleaguered network.
For context, Fox’s last five Trump town hall events outperformed CNN delivering 5.1 million, 4.4 million, 4.2 million, 3.8 million, and 3.5 million — with Hannity’s June 2020 event leading the way.
