Ophra big winner in Lance interview

ademort

According to Belgian TV Ophra was the biggest winner with her interview of Lance Armstrong. Over 1 billion people worldwide saw the interview and commercials netted a staggering €34 million.
Ademort

campagone

Well I muted and ignored the adverts on Discovery and I didn't spend a penny.

gsk82

sounds like they've been using the same tv ratings agency as those rugby union folk!

rick_chasey

1bn?

No way.

Every man woman and child in both Europe and America is around 600m.

1/7 people watched it across the world?

Nah.

Bakunin

I have no doubt that it was a good night for her network, but those numbers seem crazy.

Oprah did well for someone who is not a cycling fanatic.

tommasi

Just like when the Superbowl claims these crazy figures, they mean 1 billion could have watched it.

This won't even have been near the Superbowls real figure of 90 million.

iainf72

4.5m people watched in the US. About 200K online according to RaceRadio.

RichN95.

If they included all the people who saw a clip on the news, it still wouldn't be 1 billion.
5 billion of the world's 7 billion live in Asia or Africa and I doubt many of them even know who he is.

iainf72

RichN95 wrote:

If they included all the people who saw a clip on the news, it still wouldn't be 1 billion.
5 billion of the world's 7 billion live in Asia or Africa and I doubt many of them even know who he is.

Quite

I've not seen any of it. Not watched the news, so maybe that's why

LangerDan

Viewing figures are measure in a funny way. AFAIK , if you were watching the programme, flicked over to watch "Alaskan Auction Hunters Drink Their Own Urine While Mining Gold" on Discovery +1 during the ad break and then went back to the Oprah interview, you now count as two viewers.

ademort

Tbh i agree, the figures do seem rediculously high. I live in the Netherlands and it,s just been announced that 122,000 people watched the interview. Of that number it says that 69,000 watched it live and 53,000 recorded it and viewed it later.Here,s the link http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/2123 ... ong__.html
Ademort

buckmulligan

I'm watching a bit of Part 2 on Sky+ now and I can't believe Oprah has gotten such an easy ride out of this. Lance is obviously getting a lot of stick for the whole thing being a choreographed charade, but Oprah is the one sitting opposite him and let's be honest, she's not exactly Jeremy Paxman is she?! Why not just have a press conference and read a statement like Tiger Woods? It would be better than this patronising crap.

The worst thing is, everyone knows she's going to give these disgraced-celebrities-seeking-redemption an easy ride, so she'll continue to be the 'go to person' for this bullsh!t. What a farce.

ddraver

Dunno Buck. Someone pointed out that if he'd been interviewed by a Paxman or a Walsh then in all likliehood he'd have gone all alpha male on them and just been a total pr1ck and not answered anything.

Credit to oprah, she asked relevant questions in a way that got him to give some straight answers. It was no secret that he was going to confess to doping but I wasnt expecting as much detail as we got, i.e. Yes we fabricated a TUE to get around the corticoid positive or a admission that the retroactive samples were both his and positive...

I don't think we were ever going to get the whole story this week, but it wasnt a complete waste of time.

EKIMIKE

BuckMulligan wrote:

...she's not exactly Jeremy Paxman is she?!

Let's compare. Paxman, being the dick he is, would have jumped on the first answer he distrusted and spent the rest of the interview incessantly repeating the question. Any better than Winfrey? Personally, no.

The fact is, a chat show/public interview is the wrong forum for a confession. It was never going to be anything other than a limited confession comprised of calculating and prepared answers. The full story with all the details will only ever be revealed in private and then communicated via a third party or less visible media format (i.e. a book) - it's always the case.

Nevertheless this was an interesting 'freak show' type spectacle that gave an insight into the more subjective elements of the whole Armstrong debacle - i.e. his personality, emotions and reaction to having to come clean as opposed to the hard, objective facts.

It was only ever going to be about the spectacle. It's a PR/media exercise afterall.