Fox News’ town hall Sunday evening with South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg beat competing programming on the other cable news networks, despite attracting the smallest audience for any of the previous town halls on Fox News.
Buttigieg’s town hall had an average of 1.1 million viewers with 172,000 in the key 25-54 age demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Comparatively, Kasie Hunt’s show on MSNBC that competed with the town hall only had 621,000 viewers, while CNN’s programming did even worse, garnering an audience of only 447,000. The two programs combined for just under Buttigieg’s audience. (RELATED: Trump: Fox News Is Moving To The ‘Losing’ Side With Buttigieg Town Hall)
The South Bend mayor’s town hall was the third on the network this election cycle. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar have already participated in similar events on the network. The audience for Sanders’ town hall, 2.6 million people, ranks first among presidential town halls this election cycle on any of the cable networks.
SOUTH BEND, INDIANA – APRIL 14: South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg announces that he will be seeking the Democratic nomination for president during a rally in the old Studebaker car factory on April 14, 2019 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Klobuchar’s town hall was the third most viewed town hall with an audience of 1.6 million.
Both of their town halls occurred during the week, which may have contributed to the larger audience size compared to Buttigieg. Despite that, the 1.1 million viewers was actually a 22% increase in both viewers and the key age demographic from Fox News’ normal Sunday evening programming.
Sunday’s town hall was Buttigieg’s third since announcing his candidacy, with the previous two coming on CNN. The first one, back in March, had less than half a million viewers and took place on the weekend as well. His more recent town hall was towards the end of April, when CNN hosted five consecutive events. Buttigieg, who appeared after the other four candidates, had a nearly identical audience as the one from Sunday.