NBC cut away from the January 6 hearing to cover the US Open golf tournament and many people on Twitter jumped in to insult the hearings after the news was found out.
Lester Holt can be heard saying, “We’re going to have to end our coverage of this January 6th hearing on the NBC network… For anyone else US open golf coverage begins momentarily.”
The RNC Research account tweeted a video of it with the caption, “Americans are so interested in Pelosi’s illegitimate January 6 hearing that NBC just cut away to golf.”
They are not wrong, either. The hearing has been losing viewers the longer it goes on, and according to preliminary broadcast network ratings, the hearing coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC got smaller audiences than their evening newscasters usually get on a weekday.
In fact, their evening broadcasts usually get 1.6 times the amount of views that the hearings did on Thursday.
According to RoadMN, the hearings averaged 3.63 million viewers on all three networks. ABC had the most with 4.35 million viewers. NBC had 3.31 million viewers. CBS was in third with 3.24 viewers. That means collectively they pulled in around 11 million viewers. According to AdWeek, these broadcast programs generally bring in 18 million viewers. That means they lost about 7 million viewers when only broadcasting the Democrat dominated hearing.
On June 1, these three news stations averaged 5.92 million viewers a night.
People on twitter reacted in condemnation.
“NBC is cutting out of the January 6 hearings to go to US Open golf,” said Esquire’s Jack Holmes.
Others mocked NBC for cutting away to golf.
“NBC is about to pull the plug on its coverage of the January 6 hearing in favor of #USOpen coverage at 2pm Eastern. The libs are about to LOSE their minds!,” said Curtis Houck, managing editor at News Busters.
Sean Davis said simply, “cry harder.”
Digital strategist cracked a joke at Cheney’s expense, “watching golf > watching liz cheney cry.”
House Republicans chimed in, too.
The committee hearings, headed by ex-ABC broadcast president James Goldston, are not hitting the way that Democrats expected.
It’s becoming obvious that Americans have more on their plates than trying to watch a hearing that won’t result in any concrete prosecution anyway. Conservatives, liberals, and moderates seem to agree that we do not need another rehash of the impeachment trial in the midst of one of the worst economies since the Jimmy Carter era. Have you been watching the hearings or would you rather watch golf too? Let us know your thoughts.
