Stay Connected
Atlanta Black Star/Entertainment
EntertainmentTelevisionTV

Source: Steve Harvey’s New Show ‘Steve’ Suffering from Low Ratings After He Alienated Black Audience 

Posted byBy Kiersten Willis | Published on: CommentsComments (0)

Steve Harvey’s new mononymous talk show is reportedly in trouble. A report that ratings for “Steve” have not been stellar due to viewers’ continued distaste over his January meeting with Donald Trump.

“This is the moment his brand took a hit,” an insider claimed to the Daily Mail Monday, Oct. 30. “He had been through a few scandals before — the divorces, the Miss Universe Pageant and the Asian joke gone bad — but he had never faced the wrath of his core audience before, middle-aged African Americans. And unfortunately for Steve, he was too arrogant to realize the weight of his mistake and never made amends to his loyal followers for it.”

“The research and the ratings line up, people who were once fans of Steve’s just aren’t anymore. The whole Trump ordeal was a wake-up call for many of them and they’ve decided they just aren’t interested in him any longer.”

During the premiere week of “Steve,” the relaunched and relocated show averaged 1.3 million viewers, 13 percent less than the 1.5 million from Chicago-based “Steve Harvey,” according to Broadcasting & Cable.

Steve Harvey and Donald Trump

Steve Harvey Walks Back His Trump Criticism, Raves About Meeting On Inner-City Development 

Steve Harvey Expresses ‘Hurt’ Over Backlash In Wake of Trump Meeting

Steve Harvey Goes to Bat for Trump, Calls On Snoop and Bow Wow to ‘Respect the Office’

“Steve could have continued to survive with the first version of his show with these ratings because the show was produced out of Chicago and was less expensive to produce,” the Daily Mail source explained. “But doing a daily talk show out of Los Angeles costs big dollars and with his current ratings, there’s no way in hell [production company] WME-IMG can continue to bleed money like this into a sinking ship.”

Ahead of the launch of the new show, Harvey expressed regret over the Trump meeting and told The Hollywood Reporter that his wife advised him against the meetup.

“It was so vicious that it really threw me,” Harvey said in September after initially defending his choice on his radio program. “I was being called names that I’ve never been called: Uncle Tom. A coon. A sellout. Because I went to see this man?!”

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Related Stories

Back to top