CNN’s interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz drew just under 6M viewers on Thursday night, according to early Nielsen data.
It marks CNN’s best performance in the 9 p.m. hour in recent months, since the network hosted the Presidential Debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump in June — which managed 9.7M in the hour.
Thursday’s exclusive interview got about a million viewers in the 25 to 54 demographic, which is the coveted age group for advertisers when it comes to cable news programming.
All the cable news networks have seen a ratings bump this summer due to the presidential election cycle, though CNN has struggled to keep up with its competitors. In August, Fox News has topped primetime, averaging 2.27 million viewers, up 12% from the same period in 2023. CNN grew by 49% to 1.08 million this month. In total day, CNN has been up 13% with 615,000 viewers.
CNN has managed to keep up, though, by positioning itself with several key programs, including this exclusive interview with Harris and Walz. In June, the network also hosted the debate between Trump and Biden that would ultimately lead to questions surrounding Biden’s fitness to serve another term and his subsequent step down from the race that opened the door for Harris’ nomination.
While less than 10M tuned into CNN itself, the debate drew more than 51M viewers across 16 networks with ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and Fox all carrying the debate — with CNN branding.
However, earlier this month, MSNBC came out on top in Democratic National Convention coverage, while Fox News dominated the RNC in July.
When all is said and done, the networks have still been struggling compared to the 2020 election cycle.
