Cable Ratings: Who is America?, Power season 5, Sharp Objects episode 2
There are a few different discussions that are worth having in this edition of Cable Ratings, but let’s kick things off with Who Is America? featuring Sacha Baron Cohen. This series, a controversial look inside American politics featuring many different Cohen characters, received a quick launch after a short, but immersive, promotional cycle. The ratings, however, indicate that either this campaign didn’t work, viewers have seen enough of his comedy over the years to be satisfied, or everyone is just tired of politics in general. In one form or another, all of these different things could be true.
In terms of live viewers, the Who Is America? premiere drew close to 330,000 in its first outing, which in some ways isn’t necessarily terrible. Many new premium-cable comedy series these days don’t fare too much better, but the big difference here is that you had at the center of it a well-known star and also a lot of controversy that typically leads to even more eyeballs viewing.
Ultimately — and like with every show we are discussing here — live viewership is only telling a small fraction of the story. These show are really going to sink or swim based on how they perform after the fact via DVR and streaming. That’s really what most people are looking at in 2018 more so than anything else.
As for some other cable ratings…
Power – The Starz series recovered rather nicely from a super-low outing the week before, finishing with almost 1.5 million viewers live. As great as this is, though, there’s really not all that much to discuss here, mostly given the fact that the show already has a season 6. The ratings right now are more or less just a case study in holding down the forst and making sure that there are no falters along the way.
Sharp Objects – After getting off to a super-strong start, the HBO series starring Amy Adams drew around 1.1 million for episode 2. That’s a pretty steep decline, but, we expected at least some of that here. There may have been more curiosity to watch live last week due to Adams’ star power and also prestige of HBO. From here on out, we wouldn’t be shocked if most viewers caught it via DVR or On-Demand.
What do you think about some of the latest This Is America? ratings? Be sure to share right now in the attached comments!