Despite weeks of controversy and hype, former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly’s highly publicized interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones didn’t garner much in terms of ratings. One week later, the numbers for Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly didn’t improve all that much, as the new 60 Minutes competitor’s figures “[slipped] to a new low” during its fourth week on the air at NBC. As Variety so eloquently put it, Kelly’s ratings at NBC were accompanied by a noticeable slip over at Fox News, though the dominant cable news channel’s brief faltering was largely due to a “rerun-dominated night.”
The trade magazine reports, per Nielsen data it acquired, that Sunday Night “averaged a 0.4 rating in adults 18-49 and 3.4 million viewers” during its 7pm ET/PT time slot. Compared to last week’s sour 0.5 rating and 3.6 million viewers, Variety notes Sunday’s latest indicates the show dropped down a bit from Kelly’s much-discussed Jones interview. A drop of 0.1 in the ratings and 100,000 viewers may not seem like much, but when you consider Sunday Night‘s competition, it’s massive:
In the timeslot, “Sunday Night” lost out to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which was down from its last new episode on June 11 with a 0.7 and 7.2 million viewers. ABC led the night with a rerun of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (0.7, 3.9 million).
Sunday Night have been airing new episodes continuously, whereas its direct competitor, 60 Minutes took a break last weekend before airing a new episode this week. As for the time slot’s clear winner, America’s Funniest Home Videos, the fact Sunday evenings are now dominated by what has largely become an outdated broadcast television program (thanks to the internet) isn’t too surprising.
(Via Variety)