The Super Bowl was so super that it killed off HBO’s Sunday night ratings.
Both “True Detective: North Country” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” were down by 60% from the previous week because everyone in the world was tuned to CBS.
HBO knew trouble was coming. They released “True Detective” on Friday, but it didn’thelp. The key demo was down by 63.6%, the total viewers — 371,000 — was off by 48%.
The cabler obviously expected the Chiefs-49ers to be over quickly. But it went into overtime and extended into the 10pm hour. This harmed “Curb” tremendously. The Larry David show was down 60% and 39% respectively, with total viewers at just 257,000.
Why HBO just didn’t rerun old shows and wait a week is a good question. But maybe fans of the shows will catch up before this Sunday’s run. “Curb” improved a little this past week (I watched it after the game), but let’s get the characters out of Atlanta. They’re trying to prove a point. “Curb” is not about that. As Larry used to say about “Seinfeld,” we learn nothing from each episode.
