• by Wayne Friedman , February 28, 2019

Engrossing and sometimes heated, U.S. congressional testimony from President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen on Wednesday had cable news networks' daytime ratings posting sharply higher viewing.

Seven hours of testimony gave MSNBC the best cable TV network results -- averaging 2.83 million total viewers, per Nielsen Fast National live-plus-same day time-shifted data from 10 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

Fox News Channel was next at 2.34 million; CNN had 2.153 million.

By way of comparison, total day ratings -- which include higher-rated prime-time programming -- found Fox News’ February ratings at 1.5 million total average viewers, down 6% from February 2018. MSNBC had 1.1 million total viewers, up 12%; and CNN earned 707,000 total viewers, 1% higher.

In prime time for February, Fox News was at 2.6 million viewers, down 6%. MSNBC had 2 million viewers -- 9% higher -- and CNN came in at 1.1 million, up 10%.

ABC posted the best overall results for the Cohen testimony -- 3.097 million total average viewers during 9:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. CBS was next at 3.05 million, 9:52 a.m. to 5:04 p.m.

Results from NBC, Telemundo and Univision were not available at press time.

ABC posted the best 25-54 viewers -- typically the key demographic group for TV advertisers -- at 760,000. CBS was at 666,000, followed by CNN at 588,000; MSNBC with 452,000; and Fox News at 388,000.