15 Million People Watched Trump Impeachment Proceedings, Fox News, NBC Got Highest Rating

The viewer ratings are in for the impeachment proceedings of Wednesday evening when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump and 15 million people watched it on television, the Nielsen Company said.

The Nielsen Company is an American information, data and measurement firm. It is the predominant rating yardstick that determines viewership of programs and eventually decides what advertisers will pay to the media networks. In most cases, the data is collected when households are equipped with instruments to collect what is being shown on the screen. Other data collection options are via a phone survey or even a paper diary where the viewer keeps a running log and mails it back to Nielsen headquarters for analysis.

Of the estimated 15 million viewers, Fox News Channel and NBC drew about 5 million viewers each. MSNBC registered in with 3.2 million and CNN logged a 2.84 million count. Two other networks, CBS and ABC opted for alternate programming with CBS airing a “Survivor” finale and CBS showing reruns of popular 1970s sitcoms drawing 6.7 million and 5.7 million viewers respectively.

Throughout the day the House proceedings featured vigorous debates between Democratic and Republican representatives. The final vote was made with 229 out of 233 Democrat reps voting “Yea” (Yes to impeach) and 195 of 197 Republicans voting “Nay” (No to impeach). Of the remaining four democrats, two voted Nay, one voted ”Present” and one was a “NV” or No Vote. Two Republicans voted NV.

The Nielsen ratings focused on the representatives placing their votes between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. The ratings for the daytime discussions were not yet available.

The daytime debates, where the two different sides made their case as to the impeachment, proved to be a lot more interesting than watching well-dressed people turn in a vote to be tallied. The discussions echoed a divided country where most Democrats consider Trump the poster child for evil while Republicans point out the strong economy, low unemployment and the America First attitude of his first term.

Trump will now face a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate early next year. The odds of Trump getting impeached after the Senate trial is low.