The CNN town hall featuring former vice president Mike Pence, moderated by Dana Bash, garnered a total viewership of 632,000 on Wednesday evening, an 81% decrease in viewership compared to CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump, which generated 3.3 million viewers.

According to The Wrap, among adults aged 25-54, the town hall attracted 128,000 viewers in the key cable demographic. Pence’s telecast did see a 4.5% increase from CNN’s town hall with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley earlier that week, which had a viewership of 562,000.

Although Haley’s town hall achieved the highest demo viewership among cable news networks during its Sunday evening time slot, CNN’s town hall with Pence did not make significant headway against its competitors. CNN ranked third in both total viewership and demo viewership during the 9 p.m. time slot when the town hall aired.

In terms of total viewers, Fox News’ Hannity and MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight, both airing in the 9:00 PM ET hour, outperformed CNN, with Fox News attracting 1.9 million viewers and MSNBC securing 1.3 million viewers, surpassing CNN’s total viewership by more than double.

This trend continued in the key cable demographic, as CNN’s demo viewership of 128,000 fell behind MSNBC’s 170,000 and Fox News’ 147,000 during the 9 p.m. hour.

The town hall had little impact on CNN’s overall primetime ratings for Wednesday. Fox News led the night with an average of 1.4 million viewers, followed by MSNBC with 1.1 million viewers. CNN secured third place with 509,000 total viewers in primetime.

In the key demo, Fox News ranked first with 157,000 viewers, MSNBC came in second with 142,000 demo viewers, and CNN obtained third place with 107,000 viewers in the demo.

NBC News anchor Chuck Todd is speaking candidly for the first time since announcing he would depart Meet The Press later this year.

During an interview with 77 WABC host Sid Rosenberg, Todd said he has lost the motivation to continue moderating the political affairs program after some happenings in his personal life.

“It’s been a combination of things. They’re both personal. I lost my two closest friends in the last nine months. One to cancer. And then my best adult friend about six weeks ago, died of a complication in surgery and they’re both about my age. We have kids around the same age — and particularly one friend — he and his wife — it was just, they were right there,” Todd admitted. “Their last kid was a freshman in college. And they were just — you’ve got that next phase of your life that’s going to be a little more yours, and all of that and just taken away from all of them.

“You throw all that together and you say ‘It’s been a good run’. And I just didn’t have the motivation. The motivation got sucked out of me. 2024 is the first time I’ve not looked forward to a presidential election. Throw it all together, and it just felt like the right time to pause.”

Todd continued by saying he has no regrets about making the decision.

“Ever since I made the decision so great. It is like a weight off the shoulders. And I say that I love Meet the Press. I’ve loved what I’ve done, but I also feel a sense of accomplishment and I’m ready for a new challenge. And if you throw all that in together, you do something the same thing for nine years, and at some point it becomes work. No matter how much you love it.”

Despite being told by Fox News that the launch of his video show on Twitter violated his contract, Tucker Carlson released the second installment of Tucker on Twitter Thursday.

After his 10-minute debut on Tuesday, his former employer reportedly sent him a letter informing him that any video content he creates is owned by Fox News and launching a new program on any competitor to Fox News would be considered a breach of contract.

In his second installment, Carlson did not reference the current contract dispute. The more than 12-minute long episode focused on “taboos” in American society, and why conservatives should “cling to them like their life depends on it”.

It has been reported that Fox News has offered to pay Carlson for the duration of his contract — which is believed to run through January of 2025 — to not produce any content. Carlson has rebuffed that offer, and obtained the services of attorney Bryan Freedman.

“Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” Freedman told Axios after being alerted to the notice from Fox News.