In the battle of the big events, NBC’s musical “The Wiz Live” last week may have performed better in the key demos — 18-49 and 25-54 — but NBC’s “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors,” a drama based on an incident from the singer’s childhood that inspired a hit song, won big overall.
NBC’s faith-based original movie “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors” opened to hearty numbers on Thursday, skewing older as expected but beating its broadcast competition in key demos while drawing nearly 13 million total viewers — the biggest crowd for an original movie on the Big Four since 2012.
“Coat of Many Colors,” introduced and narrated by Parton and based on her life growing up in
Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains in the 1950s, averaged a 1.8 rating/6 share in adults 18-49 and 12.8 million viewers overall from 9 to 11. This is the network’s largest overall audience in the time period (excluding sports) since its telecast of “The Sound of Music Live” in December 2013.
And excluding all live programming, NBC hasn’t drawn a larger Thursday 9-11 p.m. audience since the series finale of “ER” in April 2009. Among all original movies on the Big Four networks, last night’s audience was the largest since CBS’ “Jesse Stone: Benefit of Doubt” (12.93 million), and there’s a chance “Coat” can surpass the Tom Selleck movie in the finals.
In an interview I did with producer/writer Pamela K. Long that appeared in Pax Culturati just before the movie aired, she had this to say:
What can be done to encourage networks to do more of these types of stories in the future?
NUMBERS. Big responses from the audience–Positive feedback, love letters, loyalty, and sanctioning from social media. Also, it all starts with a great story, great characters, and a great script that great actors want to play. Stars who want to put something positive back into the culture, which can cut through the prejudices, and get these kinds of stories picked up.
Also, people don’t want pablum; they want meat, stories that fill you up, not leave you feeling empty. If you can get an audience to laugh and to cry, and THINK, you have an audience that will tune in next time. I think “Coat of Many Colors” does just that—it entertains, but it has truth and wisdom in it, and that’s uplifting.
I think we could all use a little of that right now. That’s what Dolly is so good at, one of her great gifts … making people happy and feeling good about themselves, their situations…their lives. Everyone knows Dolly Parton, but you’ll know her with a deeper understanding after seeing her and her extraordinary family in “Coat of Many Colors.”
Say Amen.
Images: Courtesy NBC
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