Fox News and MSNBC’s nightly programming tripled the ratings CNN’s town hall with Beto O’Rourke received Tuesday night.
The town hall, which took place in lieu of CNN Tonight With Don Lemon and went into the next hour, had an audience of 714,000 with only 194,000 in the key 25-54 age demographic. Comparatively, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell had 2,196,000 viewers with 315,000 in the demo.
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham won the hour by edging out O’Donnell with an audience of 2,393,000 people. She also won the age demographic with 378,000 viewers.
O’Rourke’s Tuesday night event, which was full of inaccurate statements, did not do well compared to the other presidential town halls on CNN either. (RELATED: Buttigieg’s Town Hall Beats MSNBC, CNN Combined)
Former Texas Congressman Beto ORourke speaks during his presidential kickoff campaign in downtown El Paso, Texas on March 30, 2019. (PAUL RATJE/AFP/Getty Images)
Twelve of CNN’s 21 town halls failed to reach a million viewers, which includes O’Rourke’s Tuesday night event.
The only town halls to have a smaller audience than O’Rourke were South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Obama Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, spiritual leader Marianne Williamson, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
Buttigieg’s town hall can be explained as an anomaly because it took place a month prior to him declaring his candidacy back in March. His two more recent town hall events, one of which occurred on Fox News, topped a million viewers.
Aside from O’Rourke and Buttigieg, none of the CNN presidential town halls that failed to break a million viewers were for candidates that are polling at more than 1%, according to Morning Consult.