Trump Ratings Bombshell: CNN's Town Hall With Ex-Prez Unable to Defeat Rival Network Fox News

CNN's town hall with ex-president Donald Trump may have taken over the Twittersphere, but Neilsen ratings showed the network came in third with total day viewers and was unable to dethrone its rival Fox News.

RadarOnline.com has obtained the final ratings, which included out-of-home viewers, revealing that FNC took the top spot on Wednesday while defeating MSNBC in primetime across the board.

Trump's town hall garnered 3.3 million total viewers and 781k in the prized A25-54 demographic, lower than five Fox News Channel Town Halls with the GOP frontrunner.

CNN's highest-rated town hall was with President Biden in February 2021.

The network did get a surge in ratings during the Trump town hall held in New Hampshire that was moderated by Kaitlan Collins, with the network raving over it bringing in its best numbers since the final Jan. 6 hearings, which aired in July 2022.

Viewers tuned out of CNN after the town hall, leading the ratings to drop to 2.2 million viewers in the 9 PM/ET hour and 1.2 million for the 10 PM/ET hour, allowing Fox News Channel's The Ingraham Angle to slide past CNN by 45 percent with total viewership.

FNC easily won the 11 PM hour, Nielsen ratings showed. Their popular program The Five is said to attract roughly the same viewership at 5P/ET daily that CNN saw in the 8P/ET hour during their Trump town hall.

Former CNN star Brian Stelter tweeted about CEO Chris Licht's reaction to the town hall on May 11, claiming he began the network's 9 AM editorial call by praising Collins for a "masterful performance last night," adding that he "couldn't be more proud of her."

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"You do not have to like the former president's answers, but you can't say that we didn't get them," Licht said, according to Stelter. "Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news. Made a LOT of news."

Licht also reportedly addressed the unwavering Trump supporters who were in the audience, adding, "While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story."