'Murphy Brown' Misses Reboot Bump in Ratings That Shows Like 'Roseanne' Received

The highly anticipated return of Murphy Brown debuted Thursday night, but missed the ratings bump [...]

By Stephen Andrew

The highly anticipated return of Murphy Brown debuted Thursday night, but missed the ratings bump that revived shows like Roseanne received.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the revival debuted to 7.4 million viewers, earning a 1.1 in the ratings. This made it the lowest rated comedy of the night for CBS.

For comparison, the Will & Grace revival debuted in 2017 to over 10 million viewers and 3.0 rating, and the Roseanne revival stunned critics by premiering to 18 million watchers and a 5.1 rating.

The outlet went on to note that the low ratings could potentially be attributed to the fact that the Senate committee hearing of Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh dominated most all cable news coverage.

Politics are a driving force of Murphy Brown, as CBS News reports that series star Candice Bergen recently said that if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election it may never have come together.

"If the election had gone another way, if Hillary had been elected, there would have been no discussion about the show coming back, because in our mind, life would have been good, but then we talked — [show creator] Diane [English] once said to CBS when Sarah Palin was running with McCain, she said I just need six episodes," the actress revealed. "Then that petered out, but it was completely driven by the wealth of material that's being spewn out of the White House every day."

"I think our characters are coming from a place of, this is what got us here, this is what we believe in, this is what we're sticking with, whether — if we go down, it's going to be because we're driving the ship," added Bergen's co-star Grant Shaud, who plays executive producer Miles Silverberg on Murphy Brown.

"I think Miles is here to help guide that, but everybody's already coming from that place anyway, where we want to maintain our objectivity, we want to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may," Shaud went on to say.

Even though liberal politics are more ingrained in the show's DNA than conservative politics, Bergen admitted that they never intend to drive away conservative viewers.

"Diane English, who wrote 'Murphy Brown' and created the show — her family are all Trump supporters and Trump voters, so we don't want to drive people out of the tent," she shared. "Everyone is welcome to watch the show, and does it have a liberal bent? Yeah, but everyone has a voice."

The Murphy Brown revival airs Thursdays on CBS.

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