Sean Hannity’s interview with former U.S. President Donald Trump drew 2.78 million overall viewers to the Fox News Channel on Thursday, according to preliminary data offered by Nielsen.
The event, shown on a tape delay from a conversation held earlier in the day during a Trump campaign stop in Iowa, drew significantly less viewers than comparable town hall-style events held with Trump over the last six years, including Hannity’s conversation with the former president in June 2020 (5.1 million).
The town hall also grabbed fewer overall viewers compared to the May 10 town hall with Trump aired on CNN, which earned the network an audience of 3.31 million (though ratings fell in the days after the controversial listening session).
Despite bringing in less viewers than CNN, the town hall was enough to keep Fox News on the top of the cable news pile, well-ahead of CNN and MSNBC’s prime-time programming for Thursday evening. Overall, Fox News averaged just under 2.1 million viewers in prime-time and 229,000 viewers in the key demographic of adults between the ages of 25 and 54.
