Celebrity News

Scott Pelley’s ratings numbers called into question after interview

CBS “Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley is being called out for underestimating viewers brought in by cable news and inflating his own ratings in a recent interview. Pelley said in a Saturday chat with Deadline.com, “Fox is associated with the right, and MSNBC is associated with the left, and they’ve done that because . . . it’s a strategy. They’ve decided to bite off one small part of the viewership and be happy with that 200,000 viewers, 300,000 viewers that they have. But when you are talking to 7 million viewers across the country, man, you have got to represent everybody’s views.” But one blog pointed out on Sunday that “Fox averaged 1.5 million viewers per hour last Monday, and 2.15 million in prime time,” while Pelley’s broadcast “averaged 5.7 million . . . the week of June 3.” MSNBC averaged 401,000 per hour and 571,000 in prime time. Fox News’ Megyn Kelly said of Pelley’s comments: “Well, we beat you in all the debates and on election night, Scott.” Pelley recently blew his stack over a Page Six report and called to yell, “You wouldn’t last 10 seconds at CBS News.” Now we know why: We can add.