The series premiere of CNN’s new talk show “Stroumboulopoulos” debuted Sunday night at 10 PM, following a new episode of Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown.”
The debut of “Strombo” was soft, with the program garnering 192,000 total viewers, and 78,000 adults 25-54. Of course, Sunday was a very competitive night, with the Tony Awards on CBS, the NBA Finals on ABC, “Game of Thrones” on HBO, “Mad Men” on AMC and the season premiere of “Falling Skies” on TNT.
Somewhat more troubling was that the George Stroumboulopoulos-hosted program did not retain its “Parts Unknown” lead-in. “Parts Unknown” had two and a half times as many total viewers and two and a half times as many A25-54. All of the cable news channels were down year to year in that timeslot. The full weekend scoreboard will be up later today.
“Stroumboulopoulos” will move to its normal (and much less competitive) timeslot Friday at 11 PM, so we will let you know the ratings there once it debuts.
Another cable news debut this weekend was on MSNBC, with the 4 PM show “Disrupt” with Karen Finney. That program averaged 224,000 total viewers and 55,000 A25-54 on Saturday, and 215,000 total viewers and 49,000 A25-54 on Sunday. On both days it was was up slightly in total viewers compared to last year, and down slightly in the demo.