CNN’s town hall with 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump landed atop the cable news ratings at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, beating both Fox News and MSNBC during the time slot. CNN’s prime time average in recent weeks has hovered around half a million viewers, landing in third place behind Fox and MSNBC. For context, Fox’s last six Trump town hall events outperformed CNN delivering 5.1 million, 4.4 million, 4.2 million, 3.8 million, 3.5 million, and 3.2 million — with Sean Hannity’s June 2020 event leading the way. CNN’s president at the time Jeff Zucker told Rutenberg, “These numbers are crazy — crazy.” Zucker later publicly said he regretted CNN’s obsessive coverage of Trump during the period. The numbers for CNN’s latest town hall aren’t necessarily crazy.

Source: CNN May 11, 2023 18:15 UTC