With apologies for my absence this week, let’s get right back to it.
Variety reported earlier in the week that The View’s ratings have improved without Rosie, something ABC is of course happy to promote and encourage. But as Rosie herself and Fox News note, while overall viewership is up, demos — particularly the ones used to sell the show to advertisers — are down. In some cases, they’re way down.
Households are up 16 percent for the first two weeks of the season, sure. But the new viewers the show’s attracting are much older than the scads of them the show is losing. Women 18-49 and women 25-54 are both down at least 8 percent, but the big loss is women 18-34. Viewership in that demo is down 19.4 percent from last year.
The good news for The View? Whoopi’s bringing in the 50+ crowd, which is up 8 percent from last year.
READ IT AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF | Rosie O’Donnell’s new book, Celebrity Detox, streets this Tuesday, October 2. But she won’t be doing any press to promote it, in fact canceling an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer. She explained the decision last week on her blog.
Filed under: ABC, Daytime, Diane Sawyer, Fox News, Rosie O'Donnell, Talk Shows, The View, Whoopi Goldberg
