'SportsCenter' ratings shoot upward after Sage Steele replaces Jemele Hill
Despite ESPN’s steadfast denial, by almost any metric the network’s 6 p.m. “SportsCenter” experiment with Michael Smith and Jemele Hill, dubbed “SC6,” was an unmitigated disaster.
From a ratings perspective, there was very little good news involving “SC6.”
From an employer standpoint, ESPN alienated a pair of longtime employees in co-hosts Smith and Hill when it reassigned them.
And from a fan perspective, “SC6” was the very worst of ESPN’s attempts to be about more that just sports.
Unsurprisingly, “SC6” cratered. What was once a prime television time slot for ESPN became a gaping maw.
Not helping matters was the show’s forays into politics. Notably, Hill became embroiled in a controversy toward the end of her tenure as “SC6” co-host when she accused President Donald Trump of being a “white supremacist.”
To the surprise of virtually nobody, ESPN saw a 9 percent uptick in ratings for the 6 p.m. edition of “SportsCenter” after both the polarizing Hill and Smith departed.
Since then, ESPN has chosen Kevin Negandhi and Sage Steele as the permanent replacements for Smith and Hill on “SportsCenter.” Of note, Negandhi never has been one to let his political beliefs seep into his job, and Steele has expressed conservative viewpoints away from ESPN programming.
Since Negandhi and Steele took over full-time, that 9 percent bump has more than doubled. According to Sports Illustrated, the 6 p.m. “SportsCenter” ratings have seen a whopping 19 percent growth following the departure of Smith and Hill.
After taking over in mid-May, Negandhi and Steele averaged about 531,000 viewers for the rest of the month. Compare that figure with the 447,000 viewership average from the same time period in 2017.
Those are not insignificant gains. There are plenty of shows that would kill to average 531,000 viewers.
Who could’ve ever guessed that sports fans want sports and not social commentary on “SportsCenter”?
Of course, the problem with a sinking ship is that there’s always more than one hole to plug. And despite the solid turnaround of the 6 p.m. “SportsCenter,” ESPN is still very much a sinking ship as subscribers flee the traditional cable setup.
One major issue that ESPN still must address is its dying early morning show “Get Up!”
Co-hosted by Mike Greenberg, Jalen Rose and Michelle Beadle, “Get Up!” has been a ratings albatross for the network. Ratings have slowly decreased, from a debut viewership of 283,000 to 196,000 on Friday.
Perhaps “Get Out!” could take a lesson from the 6 p.m. “SportsCenter” and be a little less “woke” and a little more focused on sports.
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