The government shutdown may not be great for America — but it is good for ratings, apparently.
NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker scored key demographic wins on Sunday, according to new Nielsen ratings data shared with Mediaite on Wednesday, as the news show focused on the shutdown and had interviews with top Democratic and Republican politicians.
MTP averaged 371,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo, and 259,000 viewers in the 18-49 demo — making it the top Sunday public affairs on network TV in both categories and giving it bragging rights over ABC and CBS. But it was not the only winner last Sunday.
The half hour edition of Face the Nation on CBS earned the gold medal in terms of total viewers, with 2.47 million viewers, while MTP came in second place with 2.23 million. (The full hour edition of FTN averaged 2.25 million viewers.)
Both MTP and FTN enjoyed a 2% jump in total viewers week-over-week on Sunday as well.
Here is a look at the top four Sunday shows this week:
Meet the Press: 2.23M total viewers, 371K in 25-54 demo
Face the Nation: 2.47M total viewers, 274K in 25-54 demo for half-hour edition / 2.25M and 272K for full hour
This Week on ABC: 2.07M total viewers, 327K in 25-54 demo
Fox News Sunday on Fox: 941K total viewers, 205K in 25-54 demo
Meet the Press host Kristen Welker interviewed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on MTP about the shutdown, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Welker confronted Schiff on his past comments on government shutdowns, playing him a clip from 2013 where he said they “can’t be allowed.”
FTN also scored an interview with Rubio, who came on to discuss where negotiations between Israel and Hamas stand two years after the Palestinian terrorist group broke into Israel and murdered 1,200 people. Johnson was on CBS to discuss the shutdown too, and host Margaret Brennan also interviewed Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about the shutdown.
And Rubio continued to make the rounds on Sunday, appearing on This Week and Fox News Sunday. This Week had an interview with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Fox News Sunday had Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) and Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) on.
Those ratings coincided with the first day Nielsen rolled out its new “Big Data + Panel” methodology.
The update, Nielsen said last month, includes data from cable, satellite set-top boxes and smart TVs across 45 million households and 75 million devices. It also includes Nielsen’s “high-quality representative panel measurement” and “first-party data from participating streaming services” so it can better measure live events.
The post Shutdown as Ratings Winner for Network Sunday Shows — Amid Major Data Shakeup at Nielsen first appeared on Mediaite.
