Reporters watch a CNN town hall with former US President and 2024 Presidential hopeful Donald Trump at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on May 10, 2023.CNN, which began airing the town hall at 8 p.m., pulled in 3.1 million views in the first hour of the program. Early ratings show Fox saw 1.4 million viewers in the same time frame. Even though CNN lost a significant number of viewers by 9:15 p.m., the network still had slightly more eyeballs, with 2 million to Fox's 1.9.
The ratings are a rare success for CNN, which has been experiencing some of its lowest numbers in decades. In March, the network averaged 473,000 primetime viewers a night, while Fox was seeing 2.09 million viewers. Trump's ability to bring over more than a million regular Fox viewers underscores that, like polls have suggested, that the former president remains a dominant figure in U.S. politics. The town hall gave Trump the opportunity to espouse his views, and sometimes, his lies.that the clip he shared of Wednesday's town hall had 3.