FBN was available in about 49 million U.S. homes. Reports of ratings from the first episode of Imus in the Morning reported an average of 177,000 viewers (and a peak of 202,000 in the 7:00 a.m. hour) in the time slot, mostly over the age of 65; this was a more than tenfold increase compared to the network's previous morning show, Money for Breakfast. The program even beat CNBC's Squawk Box in the time slot. As of June 2012, Lou Dobbs Tonight was earning an average of 154,000 viewers on Fox Business Network. The first quarter of 2016 had FBN experience its strongest ratings in its history with day programming up 111 percent in total viewers and 130 percent in the key age 25 to 54 demographic, compared to a year before. As of August 2017, Fox Business had surpassed CNBC's ratings for nine consecutive months, and Lou Dobbs Tonight was the most-watched program in business news. CNBC announced in 2015 that it would no longer rely on Nielsen ratings to measure its daytime audience, turning to rival Cogent Reports instead. Controversies COVID-19 pandemic On March 27, 2020, Trish Regan departed the network, amid criticism of a segment on the March 9 episode of Trish Regan Primetime, where she accused Democrats of exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic solely to blame President Donald Trump for it, and launch another round of impeachment hearings. On December 23, 2020, Mornings with Maria aired an interview with a person who claimed to be Smithfield Foods CEO Dennis Organ, but was actually an animal rights activist from Direct Action Everywhere who warned that the meat packing industry could "effectively [bring] on the next pandemic.” Bartiromo issued a correction at the end of the show, admitting that they had been "punked". Smartmatic election fraud claims In November 2020, Fox Business anchors Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs promoted conspiracy theories during their programs, tying the voting machine manufacturer Smartmatic to voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. This included claims that it had ties to Dominion Voting Systems and the country of Venezuela. In December 2020, Smartmatic requested a retraction of the coverage by Fox Business, Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network, stating that it was "false and defamatory". To comply with the request, the two anchors' programs, as well as that of Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro, all aired a pre-recorded interview with Edward Perez,