Articles

May 28, 2013
 

THE SKED: Liberace Draws A Crowd

 

The same number of people–2.4 million–watched Sunday’s HBO premiere of BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, its Liberace biography directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, as watched the series finale of Smash on NBC, a network with triple the available audience.  (And another 1 million people tuned for the rebroadcast of Candelabra later that evening.)  It was the biggest total audience number for an HBO movie since Something the Lord Made in 2004, although it’s fair to note that in recent years, HBO has concentrated more on miniseries like Band of Brothers and John Adams than one-night movies.  Still, the number was more than 3x what HBO had managed with its David Mamet/Al Pacino Phil Spector a few weeks ago.

Candelabra probably skewed fairly old, given its subject matter, and HBO hasn’t yet released the detailed demo numbers.

 



About the Author

Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."