Friday, July 3, 2026

Ratings: Much Hyped Diane Sawyer Matthew Perry Interview Finished in 3rd Place Friday Night With Few New Scoops

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Diane Sawyer’s much hyped interview with “Friends” star Matthew Perry was not the ratings blockbuster hoped for by the alphabet network.

The Sawyer special finished third in its time slot on ABC, well behind the World Series and CBS’s “SWAT.”

Sawyer pulled in 4.15 to “SWAT”;s 4.44 million. The World Series was up around 10 million.

Totals will be in tomorrow.

One show Sawyer- Perry did beat was NBC’s “Dateline,” which is often hosted by Perry stepdad, Keith Morrison. The white haired, deep voiced questioner narrates real life murder stories in a very entertaining way. Strangely, Sawyer never mentions that Perry and Morrison have been related for most of the “Friends” actor’s life.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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