Oprah Winfrey interviews Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Harpo Productions | Joe Pugliese | Getty Images
About 17.1 million people watched Oprah Winfrey’s interview on Sunday night with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on CBS, according to the network, citing data from Nielsen.
The two-hour session, called “Oprah with Meghan and Harry: The CBS Primetime Special”, scored 2.6 among adults 18 to 49 years old. These numbers tend to increase as the adjusted data for home views and delays arrive the next day or later. Nielsen traditionally publishes the official numbers for Sunday’s events the following Tuesday.
This is the largest prime-time audience for any special entertainment during the current 2020-2021 TV season and the second most broadcast live event on CBS outside of the National Football League and the Super Bowl on Sunday.
These preliminary figures are a solid return for CBS, which reportedly paid Harpo Productions of Oprah a licensing fee between $ 7 million and $ 9 million to broadcast the special. Meghan and Harry were not paid to participate in the interview.
For comparison, more people watched the interview than last September’s Emmy Awards and last month’s Golden Globe together. The interview is proof that, even in a streaming moment, there are still events that can lead to a considerable audience for the traditional television network.
The interview with Oprah delved deeply into the reasons why the couple decided to leave England and depart from their royal duties.
Meghan and Harry addressed the lack of support Meghan received when she went to the palace for mental health reasons, the denial of security protection for the Archie couple’s son and royal concerns about what Archie’s skin tone would be after he was born.
The parallels between Meghan and Harry’s mother, Diana, were clear before the couple even 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 only managed to survive because of the inheritance that their mother left for him.
He added that the deals he and Meghan did with Netflix and Spotify were done, in part, to meet ongoing security needs.
The couple also revealed that they married before the official royal wedding in a small intimate ceremony and announced that their second child is a girl.