“60 Minutes” experienced an “alarming” viewership decline on Sunday, drawing one of its smallest audience samples in years, Variety reported.
About 5.6 million viewers watched, and only 558,000 were in the critical 25-to-54 demographic, according to Nielsen data cited Tuesday by the showbiz daily.
Historically, the decline is significant. Since 2000, no season has seen a sixth episode of the venerable TV newsmagazine miss 7 million viewers, according to Variety. The outlet said “60 Minutes” could suffer a ratings decline without a “strong” lead-in to a football game, like last weekend, but apparently not to this degree.
The network had not released the figures as of Tuesday, but Variety said it had confirmed them with sources.
HuffPost contacted CBS and the network declined to comment.
Revenue behind and in front of the camera exploded as the network’s perceived rightward tilt raised questions about the show’s independence and integrity.
Sunday’s episode included a deportee’s forced travels, Trump’s efforts to make the case for convicted election meddling Tina Peters and Australia’s struggles to enforce social media restrictions on under-16s.
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