NEW YORK, Sept. 11, 2017 : Hearst Television's acclaimed weekly political magazine show Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien - of which O'Brien is host and producer - has been renewed for the 2017-2018 TV season.
The show enters the new season on the strength of substantial audience growth, boasting the largest audience among first-run weekend programs premiering in the past two years.For this weekend's edition, Soledad interviews, among other guests: Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nevada) -- who arrived in the United States at age 8 as an undocumented immigrant -- about President Trump's decision on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program; freshmen Congressmen Jim Banks (R-Indiana) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Illinois), on their priorities and perspectives on the Russia probe, healthcare reform, North Korea, and what they think Congress can accomplish; and Steve Ellis, Vice President of the non-partisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, about the Flood Insurance Program that's under water by more than $25 billion.
"Matter of Fact" has rapidly expanded its reach to 85% coverage of the United States, adding major-market stations including WNBC-TV in New York and KNTV in San Francisco. Its weekly audience - now averaging about 1 million viewers - has nearly tripled since its initial launch.
In the Hearst Television markets, "Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien" now consistently places among the top-three-rated broadcast Sunday morning newsmaker programs, ranking alongside NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face the Nation," and surpassing the ratings of every cable TV Sunday newsmaker show.
"It's no small feat to launch a successful new show in syndication," said Emerson Coleman, vice president, programming at Hearst Television, who is the show's Executive in Charge of Production. "But thanks to the show's differentiated content as well as the determined work of our production team and the support of our station and distribution partners, we have in a very short period of time established the program as a significant new voice in the Sunday morning landscape."
"For us, it is a priority to go beyond the headlines to report how policy impacts peoples' daily lives," said 'Matter of Fact' host Soledad O'Brien. "We do this through a combination of reporting from the field and long form in-studio interviews."
"We know audiences are hungry for an informative and inclusive political discourse so, instead of pitting two sides against each other, we are focused on fostering well-rounded discussions that showcase all sides of an issue - encouraging people to talk to each other not at each other," added O'Brien. "That's why we step outside the beltway to pursue real conversations with some of our country's most formative leaders, including new voices at the local, state and national levels, to inject fresh perspectives on these issues."
Additionally, the show has shown substantial growth on partner stations in July 2017 "sweeps" ratings especially in the key adults 25-to-54 demographic. On stations where the show was added in 2017 it improved upon the July 2016 ratings of previous shows in its timeslot as follows:
•On WNBC-TV, New York, by 9%;
•On KNTV, San Francisco, by 33%;
•On WTTG-TV, Washington, D.C., by 41%;
•On KDVR-TV, Denver, by 108%;
•On WVIT-TV in the Hartford-New Haven TV market, by 193%;
•And on WBBM-TV, Chicago, where it launched in 2016, the show doubled its own July 2016 ratings.
In fall 2017 "Matter of Fact" moves to a new home in Indianapolis on WTHR-TV and will enter the Nashville market on WTVF-TV and the Raleigh-Durham market on WRAL-TV. In Houston, the show adds the NBC affiliate KPRC-TV. "Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien," produced by Hearst Television and distributed by Sony Pictures Television, enters the 2017-2018 TV season on 126 TV stations, including 28 of the top 30 TV markets.
