Last week, the co-EP of the new NBC News production “The Wanted” took a jab at ABC’s Charlie Gibson. 26-year-old Charlie Ebersol was making the point that his show was going after younger viewers, telling the LATimes: “I will face criticism for what my show looks like, but my belief is kids my age want to see production value. You tell me if they’re going to watch Charlie Gibson at 10 o’clock on Monday or my show?.”
Well, 2.99 Total Viewers watched “The Wanted” Monday night and it put up an anemic 0.8 rating in A18-49 viewers.
Friday night’s ABC News special “Over a Barrel: The Truth About Oil” reported by Gibson beat “The Wanted in both Total Viewers and the A18-49 demo.
“Over a Barrel” had 4.02M Total Viewers and a 1.0 A18-49 rating. The show added 1.6M Total Viewers from its lead-in “According to Jim.” and built its audience from the first to second half hour, from 3.8M to 4.3M. The news program was third in its Friday 10pmET timeslot behind CBS’s “NUMB3RS” and NBC’s “Dateline”.