Chris Cuomo's New Primetime Show Debuts to Abysmal Ratings, Only 147,000 People Tuned in
After being fired from CNN in December of 2021, Chris Cuomo returned to primetime TV on Monday evening with NewsNation, but his show only had 147,000 viewers.
Cuomo was fired from CNN after continuing his efforts to help his brother, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, who was in the midst of facing sexual harassment accusations, the New York Times reported in December.
But after several months off the air, NewsNation gave Cuomo a new show called “Cuomo” and it premiered on Monday, the New York Post reported.
However, numbers released by Nielsen Media Research showed that Cuomo’s new show debut did not draw many viewers and fell far behind other networks and even old show re-runs.
Particularly among the 25-54-year-old age demographic, which is the most wanted age group of viewers, Cuomo fell behind Fox Business, Newsmax and CNBC, the Post reported.
Cuomo only got 8,000 viewers in that age range, the Post reported.
Re-run episodes of “Blue Bloods,” “Paw Patrol,” “Spongebob,” “The Office” and even “Cocomelon” had more viewers than Cuomo in the 25-54 age range, the Post reported.
Even before Cuomo’s show debuted, many noticed that this was a big step down for him in terms of both salary and prestige.
When Cuomo had his “Cuomo Prime Time” show on CNN, he was reportedly being paid $6 million per year, the Post reported.
Now people speculate that he only makes about $1 million a year at NewsNation.
“I don’t think he had a lot of leverage … He’s damaged goods,” one source told the Post.
Once Cuomo’s NewsNation show did run its first episode, the reviews about the actual content of the show were not particularly glowing either.
It was particularly noted that Cuomo made no apology for past actions or anything about the sexual harassment allegations against his brother.
“There was no mention of why both he and his brother were fired, nor any acknowledgment that he breached journalistic ethics. Instead he tried to present his closeness to his brother as a positive for his viewers: ‘Most people in my business know politics from the outside, I know it from the inside … I’ve seen the inner workings of campaigns … and the interplay between the media and those in power,'” the Guardian reported.
Cuomo’s comments on the show instead highlighted the need for common ground and neutrality, which is part of NewsNation’s idea, Deadline reported.
The news anchor simply articulated that he was humbled and ready to make his new show something different.
“I’ve relied on my friends, my family, my therapist, and thankfully, it’s been the case that what doesn’t kill us, does make us stronger. I’ve been humbled by what happened but I am also hungry to do better in a way that I have never done before. So this show is going to be different from what I have done in the past because I’m different,” Cuomo said in the opener, Deadline reported.
But there just was not much of an audience there to support Cuomo.
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