Boston bombing manhunt a ratings boon on TV
ASSOCIATED PRESS April 22, 2013 1:18PM
This combination of photos provided on Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, left, and the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, right, shows a suspect that officials have identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, being sought by police in connection with Monday's Boston Marathon bombings. (AP Photo/FBI, BRIC)
Nearly 42 million people watched the last hour of Friday’s manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect on television.
The Nielsen company said that was the number of people watching ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel or MSNBC during the hour that ended at 9 p.m. on the East Coast. That’s when police announced that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been taken into custody after hiding in a boat.
Nielsen said that’s roughly double the amount of people who are watching one of those channels on a typical Friday night.
The networks aired wall-to-wall coverage Friday night, averaging 35.9 million people for all of prime-time.
