Ross Douthat's First 60 Minutes Interview With Trump Draws 7.8 Million Viewers
Ross Douthat's sit-down with President Donald Trump drew 7.8 million viewers overall, according to Variety. The interview aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday, and it was Douthat's first time interviewing for the programme as a new correspondent.
The episode was the eighth of the season. Among viewers aged 25 to 54, the group advertisers often use as a main yardstick (shortened to "the demo" in the industry), it reached 918,000 people.
Those numbers are lower than recent weeks, and the reason is partly the schedule. The week before, 60 Minutes averaged nearly 10.5 million viewers, and the overall audience for Douthat's episode was down about 26% from that. A lead-in, meaning whatever programme airs just before a show, helped that earlier episode. An NFL game ran ahead of it, and the same was true a year earlier.
Douthat's episode had no football lead-in. In the 25-to-54 group, the week-earlier episode drew 2.23 million viewers, and a year earlier the programme drew nearly 2 million. The 918,000 figure is down from both.
Even so, the telecast posted the highest 60 Minutes ratings of the season for an episode without a football lead-in. That is the comparison Variety drew, and it is a narrower measure than the season as a whole.
On air, Douthat put several questions to Trump. He asked about Republicans' recent midterm losses. He asked whether Trump felt he would go to heaven or hell. And he asked whether Trump could refrain from taunting opponents for the greater good.
The numbers come from Nielsen-style overnight and consolidated measurements as reported by Variety, which is the standard way American network programmes are counted. Viewing figures for one Sunday can move a lot from week to week, so the next few episodes will show whether this audience holds. For now, the figures show a strong result on a night without a sporting event before it.
