CNN led Tuesday’s coverage of the former Minneapolis police officer’s conviction.
A big audience tuned in to see the conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd.
According to preliminary figures from Nielsen, 18.38 million viewers watched coverage of the verdict across six broadcast and cable networks Tuesday. That figure doesn’t include NBC — whose fast national figures weren’t available — and will grow some when out-of-home viewing is added in the final ratings, which will be released later Wednesday.
Chauvin was convicted on all three charges against him in the May 25, 2020 death of Floyd: second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in early June; the prison term for the most serious charge, second-degree unintentional murder, could range from 12 1/2 to 40 years.
CNN topped the two-hour coverage window (4:30-6:30 p.m. ET) around the verdict, averaging 4.03 million viewers in that time and edging the 4 million who watched on ABC. (The verdict was read shortly after 5 p.m. ET.) Fox News drew 3.44 million viewers, followed by MSNBC (3.07 million) and CBS (3.02 million). HLN had 825,000 viewers.
CNN also had the largest share of viewers in the key news demographic of adults 25-54 with 1.46 million. ABC finished second with 980 million, followed by Fox News, 742,000; CBS, 682,000; MSNBC, 562,000; and HLN, 309,000.
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