After his new CNN show with Gayle King, King Charles, debuted to lackluster numbers, Charles Barkley blasted Nielsen as “clowns” who really don’t know who is watching what on TV.
Nielsen said that the first episode of King Charles averaged 501,000 viewers, putting it behind Fox News Channel and MSNBC.
“An article came out that our ratings weren’t great … but I want to tell my team, man, these Nielsen people are the biggest clowns in the world. Name me one person you know with a Nielsen box,” Barkley said on The Steam Room, a podcast he hosts with Inside the NBA co-star Ernie Johnson.
“These Nielsen people try to say our ratings weren’t great, but we won a certain demographic. Hey man, to my team, f---- them,” Barkley ranted. “Don’t you worry about what people tell you about your ratings? Nobody knows what people are watching. They don’t! You got a group of people who get to dictate who gets hired and fired, and that’s the part that sucks about the Nielsen ratings.”
Nielsen did not return a call seeking comment.
VideoAmp, one of Nielsen’s measurement rivals, painted a somewhat brighter picture of King Charles viewership.
According to VideoAmp, the show premiere was seen by 562,000 viewers, 12% more than Nielsen estimated. That puts it in the top 10 in its timeslot.
King Charles was the No. 1 show in prime time among Black audiences, VideoAmp said, and in the top 5 across all linear television among Black viewers in its time slot.
It was also CNN’s second highest-rated show for the week, behind Anderson Cooper 360.
