The final numbers are in from Saturday evening, when the verdict was read in the George Zimmerman trial. The numbers from 10PM-1AM remain more or less the same, though it is interesting to see how viewers began to tune in throughout the day.
While all the channels were seeing higher than average viewership for a Saturday morning, the numbers really began to spike around 11 AM. As the day went on, the numbers slowly inched up among the channels. At 12 PM, about 3.4 million people were watching Fox News, CNN, HLN and MSNBC. By 4 PM that was up to 3.9 million people, and at 8 PM 5.8 million people. Ratings culminated at 10 PM when the verdict was read with nearly 11 million people tuning in.
HLN had a very strong day, as it topped both CNN and Fox News in total and demo viewers during most of the hours from 12 PM to 8 PM. Once primetime rolled around, the two more mainstream channels surpassed HLN in total viewers, although it continued to perform strong in the demo.
In primetime (8-11 PM), Fox News led the way in total viewers, followed by CNN and HLN. Among adults 25-54, CNN led the way, followed by HLN and then Fox News. That order was also the case for total day viewership.
The Scoreboard will be up later today, with the final numbers. Below, however, are the numbers from 11 AM to 4 PM.
Network: A25-54 / Total Viewers
11:00 AM
FNC: 226K A25-54 / 1.092M total viewers
HLN: 453K / 1.056M
CNN: 373K / 995K
MSNBC: 94K / 406K
12:00 PM
HLN: 489K A25-54 / 1.033M total viewers
FNC: 219K / 1.029M
CNN: 333K / 1.028M
MSNBC: 66K / 345K
01:00 PM
CNN: 347K A25-54 / 1.174M total viewers
HLN: 541K / 1.147M
FNC: 205K / 1.030M
MSNBC: 107K / 340K
02:00 PM
HLN: 590K A25-54 / 1.313M total viewers
CNN: 379K / 1.236M
FNC: 211K / 1.098M
MSNBC: 115K / 426K
03:00 PM
HLN: 559K A25-54 / 1.298M total viewers
CNN: 392K / 1.245M
FNC: 208K / 979K
MSNBC: 100K / 354K