Piers Morgan interviews Charlie Sheen - and social networks help bring in 1.5 million viewers
Only four minutes to airtime and you have the scoop interview of the year. How do you promote it?
There was almost no time to promote the Monday night interview, which pre-empted both NBC and ABC who had interviews lined up for the following morning . Sheen arrived at the LA studio just four minutes before airtime. And this is what happened, as people across the US Tweeted and Facebooked that Sheen was talking to Piers live:
From 9 to 9:15 p.m. Eastern time, an average of 1.13 million people were watching ; From 9:15 to 9:30 p.m. that crept up to 1.23 million viewers. From 9:30 to 9:45 p.m. there was a surge to an average of 1.52 million watching. It levelled off for the final 15 minutes of the interview, to an average of 1.51 million people.
The figures were produced by the New York Times "parsing" the Nielsen ratings.'
Morgan's executive producer, Jonathan Wald, wrote on Twitter: “Incredible power of social media. Record ratings for @PiersTonight with no promotion whatsoever, just twitter/facebook, word of mouth.”
The Times said ,"It gave the six-week-old talk show its highest rating so far in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic that advertisers and cable news executives covet," said the Times.
The hourlong interview got an average of 1.35 million viewers, 561,000 of whom were between the ages of 25 and 54. That was enough to beat MSNBC for the hour, but not enough to beat Fox News.
The repeat of the show at midnight Eastern time also did well with 719,000 viewers, of whom 354,000 were between 25 and 54. That was enough to beat both MSNBC and Fox for the hour.
So how did Piers land the scoop? He talked about it yesterday on CNN as an admiring female colleague told him on air that the hour-long show was "riveting television".
Piers revealed that he got Charlie, an old acquaintance, to talk after a half-hour chat on the phone when he made it clear that he was on the side of, Charlie, who has been earning $2 million a show as the star of the sit-com Two and a Half Men.( Our picture shows Charlie with fellow cast members).
CBS cancelled the show mid-run last week after Charlie went on air and launched a tirade at the show's producer. There had also been a couple of recent incidents involving excessive partying, which ended with Charlie in hospital.
On air Morgan told Sheen that he believed he was “entitled to behave however you want” provided it wasn’t illegal. As Piers said , "To me he was alarmingly normal".
"If he had been a rock star, and not the star of a family sit-com, it would have been part of his image." On air, Charlie produced a piece of paper that certified he was drug free. Cigarettes, Charlie thought were the real problem.
After the show, Piers revealed, Charlie handed him his drug-free certificate with scrawled across it the words, "Piers - Let's go out and get hammered- Charlie."
The live interview with Charlie Sheen was a chance for “Piers Morgan Tonight” to stand out after it replaced “Larry King Live” in mid-January.
CNN's Wald said, “On Monday night we had the opportunity to swing, and we got a home run. That doesn’t happen often.”