• by Wayne Friedman , October 1, 2018

Fox News Channel posted the best TV viewing results for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's hearing during his Thursday testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Fox News Channel posted a Nielsen 5.7 million total viewers from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET.

ABC was next at 3.47 million, followed by CBS with 3.24 million; NBC at 3.19 million; MSNBC with 2.89 million; and CNN at 2.52 million. That's over 21 million TV viewers in total for all networks.

According to a CNN report, Fox averaged 4.69 million viewers during the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, accuser of Kavanaugh over an alleged sexual attack -- and 7.17 million during the period that Kavanaugh was speaking.

Fox also bested all networks when it came to 25-54 viewers -- key news advertisers viewers -- with 1.1 million. NBC was next with 794,000, followed by CNN at 736,000; ABC with 718,000; CBS at 660,000; and MSNBC with 464,000. Among younger 18-49 viewers, Fox had 733,000, followed by NBC with 597,000; ABC and CNN, each with 531,000; CBS at 488,000; and MSNBC with 350,000.

Looking at prime-time results -- 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET, Fox News was at 5.5 million, while MSNBC came in at 3.2 million and CNN had 1.9 million.

Fox News Channel went commercial-free for the day, devoting only on-air promos to its networks and other sister networks, according to iSpot.tv -- with some 42 airings in total.

By way of comparison, cable news network competitor MSNBC had 558 airings of paid commercials and 38 on-air network promos, while CNN had 683 paid commercials and 65 on-air network promos.