The most
spectacular success of the summer season on television may have come
before summer has even started: the
miniseries “Hatfields & McCoys” on the History Channel attracted a monster
audience Monday night, 13.9 million viewers, the second largest for a cable
program that did not involve sports.
By
comparison, the finale this month of NBC’s singing competition hit, “The
Voice,” attracted 10.5 million viewers. Most hit shows on cable are in the
range of two million to four million viewers, though “The Walking Dead” on AMC
reached what seemed then to be an impressive nine million for its finale in
March.
But that did
not come close to the total Monday night for the History Channel’s depiction of
the legendary American family feud, which stars Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton.
The viewership even dwarfed the biggest competition on the broadcast networks
on Monday, NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” which brought in just over 10 million
viewers.
William
Anderson (Devil Anse) Hatfield, in an undated photo.Associated PressWilliam
Anderson (Devil Anse) Hatfield, in an undated photo.
The only
other cable entertainment show to have more viewers was the Disney Channel’s
showing of “High School Musical 2,” which drew more than 17 million viewers.
The
miniseries has two more nights to run, Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Hatfields
& McCoys” was also a big success in the categories important to
advertisers. Among those ages 18 to 49, “Hatfields” reached 4.8 million
viewers, again by far the biggest total on television Monday night. Among those
25 to 54 (the main ad-selling category for the History Channel) the show
attracted 5.8 million viewers.
“I would have
been happy with three million,” said Nancy Dubuc, the president of the History
Channel, referring to the 25-to-54 figure. She said she had “a feeling in the
pit of my stomach all day Monday” thinking about the ratings for the show, but
“that’s usually a good feeling.”
No one at the
network had speculated that the show could hit anything like those kinds of
ratings numbers, Ms. Dubuc said.
She added:
“It’s time for people to pay attention to what we’ve been doing all along. This
speaks to the volume and the capabilities of this brand. HBO used to own this
space, the historical drama, with shows like ‘John Adams’ and ‘Band of
Brothers.’ We’re putting our mark on it now.”
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar