Word Has It Sacha Baron Cohen’s Little ‘Gotcha’ Show Was A Ratings Flop

The other day, Kimber told you about some of the controversy surrounding Sacha Baron Cohen’s little “gotcha” show, Who Is America? I’m willing to look at anything objectively, but it’s really hard to lend a shred of credibility to someone who pretended to be a disabled veteran, all to mess with Sarah Palin.

You can read about that here.

Well, guess what? He really stunk it up, ratings wise.

Via Deadline:

Just 327,000 sets of eyeballs tuned in to the premium cabler on Sunday night to see the Borat star spoof Senator Bernie Sanders, gun activists, Trent Lott, supporters of Donald Trump and more in the first episode of the series. Among the key demographic of adults 18-49, Who Is America? pulled in a low 0.1 rating. That put the secretive and controversial Who Is America? in the hinterland of the 70th highest-rated original show on cable on July 15.

Which is clearly not a place you want to be if you are a marquee name for the CBS owned outlet.
In comparison and airing in the same 10 PM ET slot as Who Is America?, Fox Sports 1 had UFC Fight Night with a 0.3 rating and 754,000 viewers. Over on Home, House Hunters Renovation snagged a 0.3 in the key demo too. However, the politics free HHR also pulled in an audience of 1.4 million.

Of course, unlike those other shows Who Is America? wasn’t just limited to television.

That’s the thing. Supporters are TRYING to say that the show was a success on other platforms.

Showtime say that Cohen’s multi-character show had over a million viewers on Sunday when you put all the platforms together. The digital drop of Who Is America? on July 15, 12 AM generated 301,000 views.

In spin mode and with no hard numbers, the David Nevins-run outlet also says that Who Is America? fueled the most sign-ups this year for a series in a single day for Showtime’s streaming service. That also translates into the No. 3 best sign-up rate for a series debut since Showtime started its over-the-top service back in 2015.

But again, no hard numbers. And since this was just the beginning and shows usually have a bigger interest during the premieres, I only expect this number to drop.

Want to know the funniest part of this? The way EW frames the ratings. Their headline is, “Sacha Baron Cohen gets modest early ratings despite controversy.”

“Modest,” huh? Then explain this line.

Who Is America? had an extremely low on-air premiere: Just 327,000 viewers and a 0.1 rating among adults 18-49 at 10 p.m.

“Extremely low on-air premiere.”

Here comes the justification.

Showtime points out that On Demand and multiple repeats keep boosting that number, however, which has now crossed the 1 million total viewer mark. It’s hard to imagine the network didn’t expect a greater initial pop given Baron Cohen’s profile, but nor is this the disaster that some have said either.

They’re trying to save it, but it didn’t generate the ratings they were hoping for. Period.

h/t Deadline