Oprah’s Meghan and Harry Interview Special Draws 17.1 Million in Ratings Win for CBS
Oprah Winfrey’s highly-anticipated interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on CBS was a major ratings win for the network, according to early information from Nielsen.
A total of 17.1 million viewers tuned in to watch Sunday’s Oprah With Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special, including 2.6 million adults age 18-49, and 3.6 million adults age 25-54, according to early Nielsen numbers.
That’s the largest prime time audience for any entertainment special since the 2020 Academy Awards, according to CBS, and the most-watched Sunday prime time event, on any network, in over a year, outside of the Super Bowl.
CBS also said that the special was the network’s most live-streamed event outside of the NFL and Super Bowl Sunday for the current 2020-2021 season.
Viewership went up as the two-hour special went on: the first hour saw 16.9 million total viewers, and 17.3 million in the second hour, according to the New York Times, which also pointed out that the numbers, while huge for today’s on-demand norms, doesn’t compare to past “big-get” interview specials.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that CBS paid a licensing fee of at least $7 million to Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Productions, for the rights to air the interview. CBS reportedly charged $325,000 for every 30 seconds of commercial airtime during the two-hour broadcast, Vanity Fair reported. During the special, Winfrey clarified that neither Markle nor Harry were paid for the interview.
Over the course of the interview, Markle told Oprah that she had contemplated suicide while as a member of the royal family, that family members had spoken to Harry and expressed worry about “how dark [son Archie’s] skin might be when he’s born,” and defended herself against allegations that she “calculated” the couple’s exit from the royal family.
In a lighter moment, the couple revealed the gender of their second child: they are expecting a girl, due this summer.
Winfrey’s 1993 prime time interview of Michael Jackson at his Neverland Ranch, on ABC, drew at least 62 million viewers, and in 1999, Barbara Walters’ interview, also on ABC, of Monica Lewinsky, drew 48.5 million viewers, according to the Times report.
More recently, the Times story said, Anderson Cooper’s 2018 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, who had an affair with Donald Trump, drew 22 million viewers. A 2020 60 Minutes interview with Trump himself, with Leslie Stahl, got 17.4 million viewers.
In January 2020, Harry and Markle announced that they were stepping back from their roles as senior members of the British Royal family, and in February 2021, officially lost their patronages and honorary military appointments. Multiple reports say that the couple, officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, may also lose their royal titles.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Markle and Harry had been stripped of their royal titles.
