Half Hour News Hour Ratings, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter

THE NUMBERS ARE IN

Confounding Critics, '1/2 Hour News Hour' Has Stellar Debut







In what must be an infuriating turn of events for serial FOX News Channel- bashers across the Internet, the network's 1/2 Hour News Hour, a conservative- leaning comedy program, turned in impressive ratings for its Sunday debut.

Given mixed advance reviews for 1/2, it wasn't clear whether a substantial viewership would emerge, but all expectations have been exceeded. Producer Joel Surnow (also behind the megahit 24 and seen in right photo) must be quite pleased.

According to TVNewser, nearly 1.5 million people tuned in to watch President Rush Limbaugh and Vice President Ann Coulter's opening skit, among others. For a Sunday night cable news channel program, those are stellar figures.

From TVNewser's report:

1/2 Hour News Hour: 1.5 Million Viewers

The ratings are in for The 1/2 Hour News Hour on FNC. The heavily-promoted premiere delivered 499,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo and 1,478,000 total viewers.

The show gained about 170,000 demo and around 300,000 total viewers from its lead-in. Half the viewers immediately tuned out, giving The Line Up just 231,000 demo and 787,000 viewers at 10:30pm.

> SF Chronicle, Feb. 16: "If 1.5 million viewers watched -- slightly less than Stewart's nightly 1.6 million audience and more than Colbert's 1.2 million -- Surnow said, 'it would be a huge number.'"

> Update: 10:43am: "The show was definitely popular with Tivo users," an e-mailer says. According to Nielsen's live data, the show averaged 1,398,000 viewers and 442,000 in the demo. The original stats, listed above, are live + same day DVR data, showing that 80,000 total viewers and 57,000 demo viewers time-shifted the show and watched it later in the day.

> Update: 10:46am: The satire's time slot was up 69 percent in viewers and up 94 percent in the 25-54 demo compared to Q1 '07 to date...

Yes, at the San Francisco Chronicle, heads must be exploding today!

Meanwhile, on yesterday's radio show, Rush Limbaugh provided more details on the program's future and addressed some of the criticism that has emerged to date:

RUSH: Let me tell you about this show. There's a second episode coming up on March the 4th at 10PM Eastern on the Fox News Channel. In my opinion, it's an even better episode, including the skit that Ann and I do to open that program as well.

But you have to keep in mind, for those of you who saw the program or who will see a repeat, these shows are essentially pilots. They were done on a shoe string budget, and of course the objective is to have the show picked up as a weekly feature.

Now, there's another thing about this. I've read some comments from people who liked the idea but thought the subject matter was weak. “Come on, I could have written better stuff,” or, “I could have done better.” You have to understand, these shows were taped on January the 12th. Ann and I did our stuff on January the 5th, they taped the show a week later, January 12th, it airs on, what, February the 18th?

There was no way to be topical here. These shows are what we in the broadcast community call "evergreens," meaning they'll run any time of the year. They're not specific to date, or not specific to issue.

If this program gets picked up and runs weekly, the show every week will be dealing with specific issues and items in the news that week. These pilots were simply unable to do that. They could have done it, but it wouldn't have worked with issues that are four and five or maybe even more weeks old.

For example, when the phone rings in the Oval Office after Ann's come out, and then my secretary Rosemary -- wonder how many people got the subtlety of that, Rosemary Woods', Nixon, 18-minute gap in the tape? Anyway, Nancy Pelosi is on the phone. Well, had we known about Nancy Pelosi and her demands for an airplane we could have thrown that in. But when we taped it, that had not come up. It's those kind of things that provide us some limitation.

So you just have to understand how pilots are produced and -- it's not that you have to; I'm trying to inform you how pilots are produced and so forth. But the next episode is on March 4th. Ann and I open that one as well, with a fireside chat. No real fire, but there's a fireside chat. It's funny as hell. The second one, that's the primo, to me.

Rush's point is well- taken: if the show is picked up long- term, it will have the ability to be more topical, as episodes are taped on a weekly basis.

Regardless of what FOX does with the program from this point forward, in establishing a beachhead for televised comedy with a conservative slant, 1/2 Hour News Hour has indeed accomplished something very important.


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Joel Surnow image: Daily Bruin