Welcome back, Kelly Ripa — we’ve got some good news and some bad news.
Let’s start with the positive stuff, shall we? After all, you seem like a bubbly person. “Live With Kelly” jumped 9 percent on average across its Season 29 premiere week, despite a lack of stability in the co-host chair, and even with Labor Day slowing things down a bit.
Of course, that increase was just over the prior week, when you were in reruns. Versus the Season 28 premiere and sans Michael Strahan, you actually slipped 7 percent year over year. There’s the womp-womp.
“Live” returned to a 2.5 over the week ending September 11, 2016, marking a five-week high for the series.
“Mr. Robot” star Christian Slater started it all off on Labor Day, September 5. Twenty-four hours later, “Rosewood” star Morris Chestnut took over — he stayed for two days. As did Anderson Cooper, who closed out the week.
Ripa drew that aforementioned 2.5 on each of her first four days. On Friday, Sept. 9, she and Cooper slipped to a 2.4. That’s not an unusual pre-weekend dip for these syndicated talkers, so don’t blame the popular CNN host.
On the leaderboard, “Live” bested “Ellen” (2.3) and “Steve Harvey” (1.5). That Ellen DeGeneres figure represented a nice big 44 percent boost above her own recent reruns (welcome back!), while the “Family Feud” host’s other show opened down 17 percent versus the comparable week last year.
Meanwhile, “Dr. Phil’s” 2.7 average kept first place at bay for everyone who doesn’t have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. And this wasn’t even Phil McGraw‘s own premiere week — he technically started Season 12 a week later, last Monday, Sept. 12. So, watch out for that lead to grow.
Until then, click here to see how Ripa has done over each the 59 measurable episodes in which someone has filled in for Strahan thus far. The search continues.