Entertainment

NBC’s ‘Rock Center’ starts slow with 4.1 million viewers

“Rock Center with Brian Williams” premiered Monday night to an audience of 4.1 million, a relatively slow start for the NBC news magazine which launched with some of the biggest names in news on board.

The show’s debut, at 10pm ET, featured reports from former CBS “Early Show” host Harry Smith, NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel and the network’s star reporter Kate Snow — covering a garden variety of topics including politics, tales from middle America and international affairs.

Comedy Central comedian Jon Stewart even stopped by the program’s premiere to lend some satirical star quality to the otherwise serious show and to chat about his Halloween plans with the “NBC Nightly News” host.

REVIEW: ‘ROCK CENTER WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS’

While Williams, 52, is heralded as a man of many talents who doesn’t take himself too seriously, the new program received mixed reviews from critics.

“‘Rock Center’ was, at times, different and good, but it didn’t come close to being both at the same time,” according to a review from TV Newser.

But the New York Post was full of praise, calling the show a definite “winner … so smart, so unexpected, so entertaining and yet so informative.”

Meanwhile The New York Times remained ambivalent, saying the show “is still a work in progress, it’s hard to judge how it will fare.”

The show’s concept was announced earlier this year but it was not scheduled until early October, when NBC’s drama “The Playboy Club” was canceled.

“We’re not doing this as a ratings play. We’re not kidding ourselves, we know it’s going to take some time to get established,” NBC News president Steve Capus said October 24, about the expectations for the new project.