More people between ages 25 and 54 tuned into Home and Gardening Television (HGTV) and Food Network on average than CNN’s townhall event on television featuring Beto O’Rourke giving his pitch to Texas voters on Thursday night.
According to cable ratings reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation by Nielsen, CNN’s one-man show with the Democratic Senate candidate was a relative bust, bringing in under a million viewers and getting less than half of regular programming on Fox News airing at the same time.
Only 938,000 people watched the event on television, finishing last on Nielsen’s list of five channels, next to MSNBC and Fox News, which delivered 2.6 million views. (RELATED: Beto Campaign Sued For Allegedly Sending Unsolicited Text Messages)
In the key 25-54 age demographic, CNN finished behind TBS, TNT, FNC, AMC and The Food Network at 276,000 during the 7 p.m. timeslot. Comparatively, Fox had 437,000.
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke speaks as U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R) looks on, during a debate at the KENS-5 Studios in San Antonio, Texas, U.S., October 16, 2018. Picture taken on October 16, 2018. Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News/Pool via REUTERS.
Other shows Thursday, like Bravo’s “Shahs of Sunset,” which follows around a group of Persian-Americans in Los Angeles, aired at 10 p.m. Thursday and had 851,000 total viewers on television.
Programming on HGTV also outperformed O’Rourke’s event, with back-to-back episodes of “Flip or Flop Atlanta,” scoring over 1 million viewers from 9 to 10 p.m.
O’Rourke has been regularly trailing in the polls throughout his campaign to Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
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