An astonishing 22.8 million Americans watched the reading of the guilty verdicts for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man on whose neck Chauvin kneeled for more than nine minutes, the Associated Press reports.
The size of the audience demonstrates the high level of attention the trial’s outcome drew across the country. It ranks as the largest audience for a non-sporting event in the last twelve months. The only two non-sporting events in 2020 with larger audiences were the finale of The Masked Singer on February 2nd with 27.4 million viewers and The Oscars on February 9th with 24.3 million viewers.
According to Nielsen, CNN led the coverage more than four million viewers. ABC, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC and CBS all had at least 3 million people watching. Even non-news station ESPN broadcast the verdicts live, although that viewership was not included in the available audience numbers.