Donald Trump's super-charged return to the political stage over the weekend was a ratings smash for Newsmax, which trounced Fox News in key ratings.
According to Nielsen, 1.9 million cable viewers tuned into Newsmax to watch the network's coverage of the former president's rally Saturday in Wellington, Ohio.
Newsmax estimates another 1.3 million viewers watched through free streaming devices, bringing Newsmax's total viewership over 3 million. Fox News did not air the President's rally live.
Newsmax's Nielsen ratings success is even more astounding considering Newsmax is carried in about 30 million less U.S. cable homes than Fox.
Still, in a key demo of 35-64, Newsmax had cable impressions per minute of 483,000 viewers, compared to Fox's 409,000.
Even with a significantly larger reach than Newsmax, Fox was able to eke out a small win in total impressions, 1.53 million to Newsmax's 1.4 million.
Newsmax had more than double CNN's impressions and triple MSNBC's, during the same time period.
The Nielsen Coverage Rating indicates from 8 p.m. Eastern — when Trump's speech started until its end at 9:30 p.m. — Newsmax had a household Coverage Rating of 2.01, while Fox drew just 1.60 during the same time period.
Nielsen's Coverage Rating, which shows key audience metrics based on proportional penetration of cable homes, puts Newsmax on an "apples to apples" basis with Fox.
The Coverage Rating for total viewership had Newsmax at 1.13, almost doubling Fox's number at .79 — meaning in households that carried both channels, Newsmax was beating Fox significantly.
Newsmax also trounced cable news competitors CNN and MSNBC in Coverage Ratings.
CNN drew a small .35 in total viewership during the Trump speech, with MSNBC drawing a measly .22, again compared to Newsmax's 1.13.
Nielsen's Saturday rally numbers show a big surge in Newsmax's total audience reach, up this past weekend by 56% from the network's live coverage of Trump's speech to the North Carolina GOP earlier in June.
"Clearly Newsmax is not only drawing a huge cable audience as traditional Fox viewers defect to us, we're tapping into the huge OTT audience Fox doesn't serve and can't access," Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy said.
Newsmax broadcasts free on all major OTT platforms, including Roku, Xumo, Pluto, YouTube, Apple TV, most smart TVs like Samsung and LG, as well as social media platforms like Facebook Live and Twitter.
Newsmax is the only traditional cable news channel available free to the more than 40 million U.S. television homes no longer connected to cable/satellite or virtual paid television.
The network also airs free on the Newsmax app with over 7 million current users on smarthphones.
Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, FUBO and major OTT platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV’s including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizio and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here
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