The Sunday morning public affairs shows posted big numbers on December 11. The morning was highlighted by Donald Trump’s extensive chat with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Trump’s first sit down with a Sunday show since becoming president-elect.
One might recall that Fox News Sunday aired a taped interview with Trump on the same Sunday in 2015. He didn’t particularly enjoy how that one turned out:
I did interview with Chris Wallace of @FoxNews in order to be fair. He then puts on Rove, Lane and Will, three Trump bashers, to discuss.
Advertisement— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2015
But there was no such angry tweet about this most recent interview. In fact, the interview gave Fox News Sunday its second-most-watched episode in 20 years. The program grew +33 percent in total viewers, and +53 percent in the news demo relative to that same Sunday episode in 2015. The highest-rated telecast dates back to 13 years ago (Dec. 14, 2003), which covered the Saddam Hussein capture.
CBS’ Face the Nation with John Dickerson was the most-watched of the Sunday shows, delivering a +7 percent in total viewers and a +9 percent improvement in the news demo compared to the same Sunday in 2015.
NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd was the No. 1 Sunday show in the ad-friendly A25-54 demo for the 11th consecutive week. The program grew +17 percent in total viewers, and +28 percent in the news demo relative to Dec. 13, 2015. MTP has also now won every Sunday in the Washington D.C. market for 78 consecutive broadcasts (since March 22, 2015).
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos grew +6 percent in total viewers and +1 percent in the news demo relative to the same Sunday last year. The program is drawing its largest overall audience in 15 years and its strongest news demo performance in 8 years – since the 2001-02 and the 2008-09 seasons.
Al Punto continues to deliver significant year-over-year audience growth this season. It’s up double-digits percent in Total Viewers (+10 percent) Adults 18-34 (+34 percent), A18-49 (+20 percent) and the traditional A25-54 news demo (+11 percent). The program is also attracting a average viewer age that’s 13 years younger than the combined average viewer of its English-language Sunday morning counterparts this season (49 years old vs. 62 years old). That’s a notable achievement.
Face the Nation is based on the first half-hour only, as the full contiguous hour aired in just 57.4 percent of the country.
The numbers for December 11:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS | Face the Nation | 4.03 M | 981,000 |
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3.73 M | 1.07 M |
| ABC | This Week | 3.15 M | 876,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 2.29 M | 477,000 |
| UNIV | Al Punto* | 710,000 | 314,000 |