Oprah Winfrey interviews Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Harpo Productions | Joe Pugliese | Getty Images
According to the network, about 17.1 million people have tuned in to Oprah Winfrey’s Sunday night interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on CBS, according to Nielsen data.
The two-hour meeting, dubbed “Oprah with Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special,” yielded a score of 2.6 in adults aged 18-49. Those numbers are likely to increase as adjusted home viewing and delayed viewer data comes in the next day or so. Nielsen traditionally releases official figures for Sunday events late on the following Tuesday.
This is the largest primetime audience for any entertainment special during the current 2020-2021 TV season and CBS’s second most live-streamed event outside of the National Football League and Super Bowl Sunday.
These preliminary figures are a solid return for CBS, which reportedly paid Oprah’s Harpo Productions a license fee of between $ 7 million and $ 9 million to air the special. Meghan and Harry were not paid to participate in the interview.
In comparison, more people watched the interview than September’s Emmy Awards and last month’s Golden Globes combined. The interview is proof that even in an age of streaming, there are still events that can lead a significant number of viewers to traditional network television.
The interview with Oprah went deep into the reasons why the couple decided to leave England and distance themselves from their royal duties.
Meghan and Harry addressed the lack of support Meghan received when she went to the palace for mental health issues, the couple’s refusal of security protection for the couple’s child Archie, and the royals’ concerns about what Archie’s skin color would be like once he was born used to be.
The parallels between Meghan and Harry’s mother Diana were clear before the pair made their own comparisons during the interview. Harry noted that they were cut off financially by the royal family in early 2020 and that he and Meghan could only make ends meet because of the legacy his mother left him.
He added that the deals he and Meghan made with Netflix and Spotify were done in part to meet their ongoing security needs.
The couple also revealed that they were married before the official royal wedding in a small intimate ceremony and announced that their second child is a girl.