NEW YORK – For many Americans, the unrest sweeping through several cities this past weekend was reason enough to stay home and watch it on television.
The Nielsen company said 4 million people saw coverage of the demonstrations on Fox News Channel at 10 p.m. on Saturday, not usually a big TV-watching time.
An hour later, 3.2 million people were watching CNN's coverage. In many cities, mostly peaceful demonstrations about police treatment of minorities became angrier once the sun went down.
On a big news week, Fox News Channel had more than double the audience of its sister broadcast network, which was largely devoted to reruns during the first week of the summer season.