Katie Couric scores huge ratings for Manti Te’o interview

Apparently, not everyone is tired of hearing about the Manti Te’o story yet. While there were some worries (at least on this end) that there was really nothing else interesting that the Notre Dame football star could say about his “girlfriend who did not exist” Lennay Kekua in his first on-camera interview about it, viewers still turned out in droves.

When it comes to household ratings, “Katie” drew a 2.6 for the chat between Te’o and Katie Couric, which is an increase of around a third of its 2.0 average from the past four weeks of programming. This also made it #1 in its timeslot for most of the major television markets across America.

It was in many ways surprising that Te’o chose Couric as his first site for an interview, even when you consider that the two share connections via some of their representation. Couric is known to be a good interviewer who rarely lets guests off without asking at least some tough questions (or in Sarah Palin’s case, an easy question that she still messed up), and she does not really have any sort of relationship to the football world. Nonetheless, Te’o’s story drew interest beyond just the sports community, and the ratings prove that there was still an interest in hearing what he had to say even from mainstream viewers.

There is still one person that most viewers interested in this story want to hear from: Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man accused of orchestrating the entire hoax to make Te’o believe that Kekua was a real person who died back in September. While attorneys for the young man have admitted that he was responsible for altering his voice and pretending to be Lennay during many phone conversations with Te’o, he has yet to speak out public in any form since this story broke earlier this month.

What did you think about this interview? If you want to watch one video clip from the chat, you can do so over here.

Photo: ABC