All the hype, all the talk, and all the new coverage about part one of the interview with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong wasn’t enough to help Oprah Winfrey’s OWN ratings Thursday night. Well, it helped a little, but the ratings didn’t come close to the numbers that they had predicted.
Only 3.2 million viewers tune in to the first part of the Armstrong interview — almost half of the 6 million she averaged daily on her syndicated show last year. Bobbi Kristina Brown’s session with Winfrey last year March was even a bigger draw for OWN, which landed more than 3.5 million viewers.
There may be an excuse or rather a reason the Armstrong interview didn’t live up to the hype. It was up against some stiff competition from Fox’ season debut of American Idol and ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. The interview ran into more hurdles as its re-run at 10:30 pm that same night also had to face a clash. While it did pull in an additional 1.1 million viewers, that number was less than the 3.55 million who watched the Heat-Lakers NBA game on TNT at 10:30 p.m., and the 1.59 million who watched The Daily Show on Comedy Central at 11:00 p.m.
OWN did however meet a new accomplishment, the interview drew the most male viewers in the history of the station.
