Fox News’ decision to not air Jan 6 hearing costs it top spot

Right-wing channel branded ‘cowardly’ for not showing first hearing live

The decision by Fox News to not air live coverage of the first primetime January 6 hearing cost it the top spot in the cable news ratings battle.

The right-wing network was beaten to first place by MSNBC on Thursday night, which saw 4.1m viewers tune in for their coverage of the hearings, four times their weeknight average, according to preliminary Nielson ratings.

Fox News, which chose to relegate its coverage to Fox Business Network and keep its opinion shows with hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, came in second place with 3m viewers on Thursday night.

CNN came in third place with 2.6m viewers.

The Fox Business Network coverage of the hearings had 223,000 viewers from 8pm to 10pm, while Fox also made it available on its streaming platforms.

In the run-up to the hearing, Fox News was slammed by its critics for not showing the hearing live, with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer branding it “cowardly”.

A total of nearly 20 million viewers tuned in to the first hearing when the major broadcast networks are factored in and the figure is expected to rise as streaming viewers are taken into account.

The January 6 committee will present more evidence into its investigation into the 2021 Capitol attack three times next week, as part of hearings on its findings.

The next hearing is scheduled for Monday at 10am, followed by Wednesday at 10am and Thursday at 1pm. The remaining four hearings have not yet been scheduled.

Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican, has said that Monday’s hearing will focus on Donald Trump knowing he had lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, but still engaging in a “massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information.”