Is Christiane Amanpour Tanking in Ratings as ABC's This Week Host?

Is Christiane Amanpour, the prominent former CNN staffer who has the admirable dream of bringing more foreign news related discussion to network television, tanking in the ratings as host of ABC’s (once) popular Sunday morning show “This Week?” The initial indications certainly seem ominous. Mediaite reports:

Christiane Amanpour has been ABC’s This Week host for nine Sundays and she has finished second, but mostly third, among the competition in both total viewers and the A25-54 demographic.

Last Sunday, September 19, the show didn’t just finish in third place, behind NBC’s Meet The Press and CBS’ Face The Nation – it was the lowest ratings in the A25-54 demographic in more than seven years.

NBC had 988,000 viewers in the demo, CBS 854,000 and ABC 608,000. The last time ABC had a lower rating in the demo was the August 24, 2003 show (including regular/full telecasts), near the beginning of George Stephanopoulos‘ reign. Year-to-year, the show was down 29% in total viewers and 38% in the demo, while it declined in both categories week-to-week as well (while NBC and CBS grew).

It’s not like it had anything to do with the guests either – This Week put together arguably the best guest list last Sunday. Amanpour had a Sunday exclusive with President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well as an interview with Sec. Hillary Clinton. On paper, it was a strong show. But the ratings, which haven’t been spectacular from the very beginning, have continued to see a decline, despite these high profile bookings.

When the show debuted third in total viewers and second in the demo August 1, Executive Producer Ian Cameron told TVNewser, “We are very pleased with the broadcast on Sunday, and we’re exactly where we thought we’d be. It’s been a solid start all around.”

Eight weeks in, the show remains far behind the leader, MTP, and in many weeks, significantly behind second place as well.

When Jake Trapper was fill in host until Amanpour made the official shift, ABC won the rating race some weeks.

But note that this is not usual in high profile network shifts in news show hosts. Often what looks like it’ll wow ’em on paper turns out to either no wow ’em or it requires more time to take hold. That’s because the deals and calculations are often made before the news personality can be free to start their new stint and a temporary host comes in — and is accepted by the audience.

To wit:

CBS virtually forced Walter Cronkite into retirement because it didn’t want to lose Dan Rather, and it virtually threw away Roger Mudd. In the end, Rather proved a controversial choice and not just due to him making political enemies. He just never “clicked” like Cronkite. And when Rather himself was retired by a CBS that wanted to short-circuit its Father problem and get better ratings, veteran newsman Bob Schieffer was brought in until NBC star Today host/newswoman Katie Couric could come in.

Some pundits, bloggers and critics laughed and suggested CBS was erring in bringing in the grandfatherly Schieffer at time when it wanted younger views. But they discovered to their surprise (and to some degree horror) that place-holder Schieffer was liked by audiences, ratings went up and it became clear that Schieffer was in the same tradition, from the same school as Cronkite. Audiences liked him. It could have had a far more popular newscast if Schieffer had been brought in earlier — like after Cronkite retired on his own timetable.

Couric came in with great fanfare and expectations from critics and the network. But ratings seemed to suggest some viewers were upset that CBS took their Bob Schieffer away. She didn’t bomb enough for CBS to deep six her, but she didn’t live up to expectations in terms of buzz and ratings.

CNN has had experiences with highly touted anchors that didn’t catch on, while some other younger anchors who were lesser names started to take hold and will likely be that network’s future as it moves towards having new leadership.

Network calculations have bombed before. For instance, there was ABC’s disastrous pairing of a young Barbara Walters with former CBS staffer and ABC star newsman Harry Reasoner, who resented being teamed up with her and, some writers suggested, with a woman to boot. Another network calculation that bombed: CBS paired up Connie Chung with Dan Rather who seemed as resentful of having to do the show with her as Reasoner was with Walters, but for professional reasons.

Can Amanpour re-build the ABC audience? Most likely she can. NBC’s David Gregory is not yet an icon of this generation or previous ones.

And Schieffer will eventually leave the CBS scene totally — although he and Andy Rooney will likely outlast us all.

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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