Friday, March 15, 2013

Sacred mystery: Blockbuster ratings for ‘The Bible’ confound Hollywood

How can the cable mini-series “The Bible” be such a ratings hit when there is no audience for overtly religious entertainment programming? - Daniel Wattenberg/Washington Times

According to the latest Nielsens, released Tuesday, Sunday night’s telecast of “The Bible,” produced by husband-and-wife team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey for basic cable’s History channel, managed to attract more viewers than anything on broadcast network NBC … during the entire week.

The second installment of this five-part mini-series airing at 8-10 p.m. Sundays through Easter — the first foray into scripted drama for “Survivor” creator Burnett — drew 10.8 million viewers, good for number one in its timeslot and number 11 overall for the week.