The premiere of ABC's new food program THE CHEW attracted 2.5 million total viewers on Monday afternoon, just above ALL MY CHILDREN's season average of 2.4 million viewers.THE CHEW also topped AMC's average with women 18-49, posting a 0.9 rating and 590,000 viewers to the now-canceled soap's 0.8 rating and 541,000 viewers, according to live-plus-same-day ratings.
The show's opening audience was larger than that for last season's launch of CBS' THE TALK, which drew 2.2 million viewers, and the 1997 premiere of ABC's THE VIEW, which delivered 1.9 million viewers.
If you factor in all the promotion ABC did, and the fact that these shows tend to debut well then drop in the ratings, this could only look good for ABC on the surface. The missing the point in the mainstream press is that AMC production costs may have been higher, but THE CHEW was pre-production burning money for a year and ABC's promotional budget for the show was huge.
Let's see how the show does a month from now. Or will ABC continue to blow a huge amount of cash promoting the show to try to prove their decision right?
Read this as a history lesson that could be repeated 25 years later (THE CHEW = WORLDPLAY?).
DAYTIME SOAP OPERAS
