Now that the final numbers are out, it’s easy to see that Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network failed to overcome its ratings malaise with Winfrey’s two-part Lance Armstrong interview last week.
While Part 1 of the Winfrey-Armstrong sitdown pulled in 3.2 million viewers in its initial telecast Jan. 17 — much less than expected, and not even an OWN record — those numbers dropped significantly for last Friday night’s Part 2, when only 1.8 million viewers tuned in for the 9 p.m. telecast.
(Part 2 added another 620,000 viewers in its 11:30 p.m. repeat — far less than the 1.1 million who watched the Part 1 repeat the previous night.)
Given all the Armstrong hype leading into the two-part sitdown, these are disappointing TV numbers, no matter how they’re spun.
Just sayin’.
Speaking of numbers, interest in President Obama’s second inauguration waned drastically from 2009, at least vis a vis TV viewership numbers.
Monday’s inauguration averaged 21 million viewers from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. — down from the nearly 38 million viewers who tuned in to watch the first Obama inauguration in 2009, according to Nielsen.
The numbers from this past Monday were culled from a total of 18 broadcast and cable networks; numbers from 2009 came from a total of 17 networks.
“Lizard Lick Towing,” meanwhile, returned for its third season Monday night on truTV with 2.9 million viewers — a new series record.
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The stars (or is that “starz”?) of “Spartacus” will be on hand tonight at The Museum of Modern Art for the New York premiere of the show’s third and final season.
Liam McIntryre, Manu Bennett, Dustin Clare, Lucy Lawless, Peter Mensah et al. will be at MoMA (4 West 54th) at 7 p.m. The season opener of “Spartacus: War of the Damned” airs tomorrow at 9 p.m. on STARZ.
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“Army Wives” will be back for its seventh season on March 10 — with new cast members Ashanti, Torrey DeVitto, Elle McLemore and Jesse McCartney (but without Kim Delaney). Both Ashanti and McCartney are singers (Ashanti won a Grammy, McCartney was nominated for one), but also have some acting chops — Ashanti in “John Tucker Must Die” and “Coach Carter” and McCartney in “All My Children” (the soap on which he garnered two Daytime Emmy nods).
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Last, but not least:
* This year’s inductees into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame: Ron Howard, Al Michaels, Les Moonves, Bob Schieffer, Dick Wolf and TV pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth . . . Shine America has launched a new division, Shine Hispanic & Latin America, with veteran Colombian TV producer/exec Cristina Palacio as president . . . Ch. 4’s Tom Llamas emcees today’s Child Abuse Prevention Program’s 26th anniversary celebration (at Chelsea Piers) . . . Think they missed the action? With the NHL finally back on the ice after a long lockout, Saturday’s Rangers-Bruins opener game was the highest-rated regular season game on MSG since April 1995 . . . “Operation 7: Save a Life,” hosted by Bill Ritter, airs Saturday (7 p.m.) on Ch. 7 with info on what to do in emergency situations (think Hurricane Sandy).