‘Kris’: A Good Enough Start, Or The Next ‘Sharknado’?
For the second time in the past week, a program that had the media hyperventilating ahead of its premiere does not appear to have impressed the public to the same degree. Only time will tell if Kris Jenner’s new talker is the new Sharknado. Monday’s Kris rollout, on Fox stations in six markets — New York/WNYW, Los Angeles/KTTV, Dallas/KDFW, Phoenix/KSAZ, Minneapolis/KMSP and Charlotte/WJZY — included three of the country’s Top 5 markets (NY, LA and Dallas). In those six markets, Kris averaged a 1.1/3 household rating, failing to build over the year-ago time period, and retaining its lead-in share. Kris did noticeably improve the stations’ May sweep performance in female demos, finishing first in its time slot in Los Angeles ahead of Katie, Steve Harvey, and Dr. Phil.
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But the launch of the show’s six-week test run was not a home run, despite the bajillion bucks worth of free publicity it enjoyed compliments of the press. In New York, for instance, Kris clocked a 1.1/4 household rating, falling below both its Wendy Williams lead-in (1.4/5) and its leadout, the launch of The Real (1.5/5). That’s an accomplishment — for The Real, given how much less advance noise was made on that show’s part, owing to its shocking lack of Kardashian-ness.In New York, Kris also got creamed in households by time-slot competitor The View (4.3/14), as well as The Price Is Right (3.0/10); Kris also got edged out by Access Hollywood (1.4/5) in households. In Los Angeles, on the other hand, Kris’ 1.3/4 beat time-slot competitor Katie (1.2/3) and Steve Harvey (0.7/2), though she fell short of Dr. Phil (1.8/4). Jenner, aka Mamma Kardashian, pulled out all the stops in her Monday debut, trotting out a swaddled baby that turned out not to belong to her Most Famous Daughter Kim Kardashian and baby daddy Kanye West. The North West stand-in, while looking plenty cute, and the show’s opening 10-minute (a lifetime in daytime TV) story about Kim’s baby-birthing drama only drove home the point that all Jenner has to peddle is being the matriarch of the family famous for being famous, though she gamely tossed boxes of Twinkies, making their comeback to your grocery stores, and plugged DayGlo undies.
Back in January, Fox announced Mama Kardashian would get a six-week tryout as a daytime host this summer. News Corp’s Fox TV Stations division, and its syndication operation Twentieth Television, said Jenner would get a test run on select Fox-owned TV stations. Kris was pitched as a pop-culture-driven show that would deliver to viewers a “daily jolt of celebrity guests, fashion and beauty trends, plus a mix of lifestyle topics”, Twentieth TV said, clarifying it would not be a political talk show, as you might have thought. Jenner is the second Kardashian Klan member given a shot at TV series stardom by the corporation; daughter Khloe co-hosted The X Factor for one season, where she became best known for reading her cue cards like she was taking the eye exam at the DMV. Sadly, she was not brought back for this upcoming season. Twentieth TV exec vp Stephen Brown said back then that Jenner’s show would complement the operation’s Wendy Williams and Bethenny Frankel talk shows — both of which also started as six-week test runs.
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