Chuck Todd‘s Sunday exclusive with former assistant to the president Omarosa Manigault Newman brought Meet the Press a large audience.
The NBC Sunday show won its eighth straight broadcast across the board – its best streak in almost seven years (since Sept. 18, 2011), by delivering 3.61 million total viewers, +38 percent more than ABC and +33 more than CBS. Meet the Press was the only Sunday show to deliver more than three million viewers, hitting a 17-week-high in total viewers (since April 15, 2018).
In a rare occurrence, MTP was able to post slight viewership growth vs. the comparable Sunday in 2017, (+.1 percent) which was the day after the atrocities in Charlottesville transpired.
The story remained the same when it came to drawing the key A25-54 demo, with the Aug. 12 edition of MTP -19 percent in A25-54 vs. Aug. 13 2017 broadcast.
During the interview, Omarosa told Todd: “I have heard the tape” of President Trump saying the n-word, and “when he talks that way, the way he did on this tape, it confirmed that he is truly a racist.” The broadcast also played exclusive audio from her which she says is a recording of her firing by White House chief of staff John Kelly in the Situation Room on December 12th, 2017.
It was a rough week for the other Sunday shows, with everyone seemingly tuned into NBC for the Omarosa sit-down. Moderated by Margaret Brennan, CBS’ Face the Nation ranked No. 2, both in total viewers and among the key A25-54 on Sunday. But the broadcast was -21 percent in total viewers and -25 percent in the key demo vs. last year.
ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos finished No. 3 in both categories. Sunday’s broadcast was -21 percent in total viewers and down a whopping -37 percent among adults 25-54 vs. the same Sunday last year.
With Martha MacCallum sitting in for Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday on Fox Broadcast was -23 percent in total viewers, and -30 percent in the demo vs. last year. The trio of cable replays delivered 2.36 million total viewers and 419,000 A25-54 demo viewers. Combined with the original, the Aug. 12 edition of FNS delivered 3.51 million total viewers and 749,000 demo viewers.
The numbers for Aug. 12:
| Network | Program | Total Viewers | A25-54 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NBC | Meet the Press | 3,610,000 | 897,000 |
| CBS | Face the Nation | 2,706,000 | 609,000 |
| ABC |
This Week | 2,623,000 | 579,000 |
| FOX | Fox News Sunday | 1,148,000 | 330,000 |