How Many Boston Viewers Watched Cable News During Bombing Suspect’s Capture?

By Merrill Knox 

Digging deeper into the ratings for the TV news coverage from Boston Friday night: as we told you Monday, 46 million watched the crucial 8pm hour of coverage on cable and broadcast networks.

But now we have a better look at how it played on Boston TV — the nation’s 7th  largest market made up of 2.37 million TV homes. As TVSpy reports, 68% of Boston households were tuned in to local coverage from 8-9pm. Another 11% of Boston homes were tuned into one of the cable networks — Fox News, CNN or MSNBC — bringing the total percentage of households watching the news in Boston during that hour to 79%.

While the local stations got the most viewers, CNN led the way among the cablers in Boston with 139,000 total viewers and 77,000 A25-54 viewers in the 8pm hour.

Advertisement

Here’s the Boston ratings breakdown by network:

7:00-9:00 pm:

  • CNN:  2.1 rating / 5.0 share with 125,000 total viewers (3.0 / 6.0 with 73,000 A25-54)
  • Fox News:  1.7 / 4.0 with 101,000 total viewers (1.1 / 2.0 with 26,000 A25-54)
  • MSNBC:  0.6 / 1.0 with 35,000 total viewers (0.3 / 1.0 with 7,000 A25-54)

8:00-9:00 pm:

  • CNN:  2.4 / 5.0 with 139,000 total viewers (3.1 / 6.0 with 77,000 A25-54)
  • Fox News:  2.0 / 4.0 with 116,000 total viewers (1.2 / 2.0 with 29,000 A25-54)
  • MSNBC:  0.8 / 2.0 with 47,000 total viewers (0.4 / 1.0 with 9,000 A25-54)

 

Advertisement