Fox News attracts record RNC opening night audience, beats combined viewership of broadcast networks

Fox News had the most-watched opening night coverage of any national party convention in the history of cable news Monday when a whopping 7.1 million people tuned in for the first night of the Republican National Convention.

Fox News’ average viewership of 7.1 million in the 10 p.m. ET hour hosted by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum topped the combined viewership of ABC, CBS and NBC as no broadcast network cracked the 2 million viewer plateau.

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CNN and MSNBC's combined audience also failed to top Fox News as CNN averaged a smidge over 2 million viewers and MSNBC settled for 1.6 million.

In total, roughly 15.8 million people tuned in to the 10 p.m. hour of the RNC across Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC. More than 18 million tuned in for the first night of last week's Democratic National Convention.

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Viewers witnessed a variety of speeches that focused on the promise of America's future, as Republicans criticized what they saw as a negative outlook put forward by the Democrats.

A number of speakers praised the accomplishments of President Trump's administration before the coronavirus pandemic, while pushing back against Democrats' radical policy proposals.

Fox News averaged 6.5 million viewers between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET, compared to CNN’s 2 million and MSNBC’s 1.8 million.

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“Hannity” scored its second most-watched episode ever, averaging nearly 7 million viewers.

Sean Hannity's 9 p.m. ET program recently averaged 4.1 million viewers to finish July as the most-watched show in cable news, helping Fox News finish No. 1 among all of basic cable during the primetime hours for the seventh straight month.

All RNC ratings data courtesy of early Nielsen Media Research.

Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.