Aftermath of Floyd death drives news interest, notably CNN

NEW YORK — Public interest in demonstrations following the death of George Floyd boosted news programming — none more so than CNN.

Since Floyd's death on Memorial Day in the custody of Minneapolis police, CNN's prime-time audience is up 238 per cent over last year, the Nielsen company said. Fox News Channel is up 61 per cent and MSNBC up 40 per cent in the same period.

Fox News remains the most-watched cable network. But in the past two weeks, CNN has vaulted past MSNBC into second place.

ABC's “World News Tonight” with anchor David Muir averaged more viewers last week than any prime time show on television.

For the week, CBS averaged 4 million viewers. ABC had 3.3 million, NBC had 3.2 million, Fox had 1.49 million, Univision had 1.47 million, ION Television had 1.1 million and Telemundo had 890,000.

Fox News Channel averaged 3.86 million viewers for the week. CNN had 2.46 million, MSNBC had 2.2 million, HGTV had 1.35 million and TLC had 1.12 million.

“World News Tonight” averaged 9.4 million viewers. NBC's “Nightly News” finished second among the evening newscasts with an 8.3 million average and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.8 million.

For the week of June 1-7, the top 20 prime-time shows, their networks and viewerships:

1. “America's Got Talent,” NBC, 8.79 million.

2. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 7.76 million.

3. “NCIS,” CBS, 6.56 million.

4. “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” ABC, 6.52 million.

5. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Monday), Fox News, 5.96 million.

6. “Hannity” (Monday), Fox News, 5.86 million.

7. “Celebrity Family Feud” (Sunday), ABC, 5.71 million.

8. “The Ingraham Angle" (Monday), Fox News, 5.39 million.

9. “60 Minutes Presents” (Sunday, 8 p.m.), CBS, 5.23 million.

10. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 5.08 million.

11. “Tucker Carlson Tonight" (Tuesday), Fox News, 5.05 million.

12. “Hannity” (Tuesday), Fox News, 4.98 million.

13. “Celebrity Family Feud” (Monday), ABC, 4.93 million.

14. “Hannity” (Wednesday), Fox News, 4.85 million.

15. “Man With a Plan,” CBS, 4.84 million.

16. “FBI,” CBS, 4.81 million.

17. “Anderson Cooper 360” (Monday), CNN, 4.66 million.

18. “The Ingraham Angle” (Tuesday), Fox News, 4.6 million.

19. “Tucker Carlson Tonight” (Wednesday), Fox News, 4.55 million.

20. “America's Funniest Home Videos,” ABC, 4.54 million

David Bauder, The Associated Press