Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson Jan. 6 committee testimony a television hit

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the Jan. 6 committee was a big hit with television viewers, easily reaching a larger live audience than any of the four other daytime hearings.

Hutchinson’s riveting testimony about former President Donald Trump’s temper as plans to overturn the 2020 election fell apart was seen by 13.17 million people last week, the Nielsen company said.

That’s a 28% jump from the 10.25 million who watched the committee’s previous daytime hearing, and 23% over the average from the four daytime hearings. The committee’s first hearing, the only one televised in prime time, was seen by 19.4 million people.

The committee had hurriedly scheduled a public session to hear Hutchinson’s testimony after expecting to be off until mid-July. Its leaders built up anticipation by trying to keep the identity of its witness a secret in advance.

Given that many people later heard parts of Hutchinson’s testimony online or in news reports, the actual number of people who heard what she said was bigger than the live coverage.

CBS was the most popular network in prime time last week, averaging 2.7 million viewers. NBC had 2.4 million, ABC had 2.1 million, Fox had 1.6 million, Univision had 1.2 million, Ion Television had 1 million, and Telemundo averaged 900,000.

Fox News Channel was the top-rated cable network in prime time, averaging 2.05 million viewers. MSNBC had 1.31 million, HGTV had 858,000, Hallmark had 730,000 and History had 685,000.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” led the evening news ratings race with an average of 7.2 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 6.1 million and the “CBS Evening News” had 4.3 million.