Ratings for Boston stations were through the roof Friday night as all stations had wall-to-wall coverage of the manhunt for Boston marathon bombing suspect in Watertown. During the 8pm hour, when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken into custody, 68% of Boston households were watching the four local network affiliates as well as local cable outlet NECN. Hearst-owned WCVB drew the most viewership.
From 7-9p.m., the Boston stations drew a combined 1.764 million viewers in a city that has 2.36 million TV households.
An additional 11% of Boston households were tuned in to coverage on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC from 7-9pm. TVNewser has the breakdown of the cable news ratings in Boston by network.
Here’s the ratings breakdown by station:
7:00-9:00 pm:
- WCVB (ABC): 10.4 rating / 23 share with 609,000 total viewers (10.5 / 22 with 259,000 A25-54)
- WBZ (CBS): 7.3 / 16 with 427,000 total viewers (7.1 / 15 with 175,000 A25-54)
- WHDH (NBC): 6.7 / 15 with 392,000 total viewers (9.1 / 19 with 226,000 A25-54)
- WFXT (Fox): 5.0 / 11 with 292,000 total viewers (6.9 / 15 with 171,000 A25-54)
- NECN: 0.8 / 2 with 44,000 total viewers (0.7 / 2 with 18,000 A25-54)
8:00-9:00 pm:
- WCVB: 11.0 / 23 with 645,000 total viewers (11.7 / 23 with 289,000 A25-54)
- WBZ: 7.6 / 16 with 447,000 total viewers (7.6 / 15 with 187,000 A25-54)
- WHDH: 7.1 / 15 with 417,000 total viewers (9.8 / 19 with 243,000 A25-54)
- WFXT: 5.9 / 12 with 345,000 total viewers (8.4 / 16 with 207,00o A25-54)
- NECN: 0.8 / 2 with 46,000 total viewers (0.7 / 1 with 17,000 A25-54)
>More: For reference, an alert TVSpy commenter points out that 2012 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants was watched by 56.7% of Boston households.