• by Wayne Friedman , December 7, 2023

Upstart cable TV news network NewsNation and its sister broadcast network The CW pulled in 4.1 million Nielsen-measured average minute viewers for the fourth GOP Presidential debate -- the lowest viewing of the four debate events so far.

The CW had the bulk of the viewing, with 2.5 million viewers. For The CW, this was its best result for any programming in five years.  

NewsNation took in 1.6 million -- the best result ever for the three-year-old news channel, which reaches nearly 70 million TV households. 

EDO Ad EnGage estimates debate programming on The CW pulled $448,000 national TV advertising dollars and 78.6 million impressions.

NewsNation pulled $170,660 and 29.07 million impressions.

Among key 25-54 news viewers, NewsNation tallied 350,000, and The CW had 500,000.

The first debate on Fox News Channel/Fox Business posted the best results so far, at 12.8 million. Fox News reached 11.1 million, with Fox Business at 1.7 million.

The second debate on Fox Business, Fox News Channel and Univision averaged 9.5 million viewers in September. The third debate in early November on NBC/Peacock took in a total of 7.5 million viewers. 

Looking at just the broadcast networks for the second and third debates, NBC had 6.86 million viewers, with Fox News Channel at 6.69 million.

NewsNation was built partly from Nexstar Media Group -- a large stable of TV stations, the most in the U.S. -- and those outlets' local TV news programs, with some 110 newsrooms across the country.

Since it bought a 75% stake in the CW from Warner Bros. Discovery/Paramount Global in October 2022, Nexstar has transitioned The CW to a more general entertainment broadcast channel including now 300 hours of sports per year from LIV Golf and ACC football/basketball games.

Starting next year, it will add WWE “NXT,” a series of 52 live weekly events, and Nascar Xfinity Series programming in 2025.