When President Obama appeared in the Rose Garden Saturday afternoon to announce he was moving ahead with plans for military strikes against Syria, but was going to seek Congressional support first, the news networks went into rolling coverage and brought in the weekday anchors for hours of coverage.
The president was scheduled to speak at 1:15pmET, but actually began his remarks around 1:50pm. The broadcast networks, cable news networks and cable business networks all produced live coverage. Here’s how it broke down on the news channels:
- 1pmET
Network / A25-54 / Total Viewers
CNN 338,000 / 1.323M
FNC 274,000 / 1.075M
MSNBC 132,000 / 472,000
- 2pmET
CNN 307,000 / 1.102M
FNC 290,000 / 1.245M
MSNBC 111,000 / 484,000
The networks saw double and, in some hours, triple digit growth between the hours of Noon-5pm, compared to the quarter-to-date:
- Noon-5pmET
CNN 242,000 / 926,000
FNC 235,000 / 971,000
MSNBC 124,000 / 390,000