It’s no fault of the new Kennedy Center Honors producers. But their ratings were down by 300,000 viewers in the key 18-49 demo last night, from last year’s show.
It was last year’s show that brought the ousting of George Stevens Jr, who started the show 37 years ago, and his son Michael.
The new major donor of the Kennedy Center, David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group, decided he wanted new, hipper people presenting the program. So he got rid of the Stevenses unceremoniously. (Michael Stevens became gravely ill right after last year’s award show. He died a few weeks ago at age 48.)
Now the ratings are in for last night’s telecast. They are lower than the year before– a 0.9 vs. 1.2 in the demo. Last night show’s drew 7.5 million viewers total. Last year, the Kennedy Center Honors had a total of 9.25 million viewers. The show lost the lead in from an “NCIS” rerun of 10.4 million.
Think of this: the program featured George Lucas and “Star Wars,” a movie that is making $30 mil a day and has already crossed $1 billion worldwide. You’d think there would have been some interest– and certainly not a huge loss.
The show was very good, albeit for the weird non tribute to the Eagles. But something got lost in the translation.
