Roseanne didn't just return to the air with a pro-Trump message, it returned with huge ratings. The show Tuesday night drew 18.2 million viewers, many of them in the coveted 18-49 age bracket, figures that have stunned Hollywood, reports Deadline. Maybe not surprisingly, the numbers also drew the attention of President Trump himself, who placed a call to Roseanne Barr Wednesday to express his admiration for the ratings coup on ABC, reports the New York Times. Barr is a staunch supporter of Trump in real life, as is her character in the show, Roseanne Connor. During the call, the president reportedly reminisced about a time they met a while back, per Axios. In terms of the ratings, the show did especially well in states where Trump the candidate did well—the top three cities being Tulsa, Oklahoma; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Kansas City, Missouri.
Deadline notes that the only big city from a blue state in the top 10 was Chicago at No. 5. The show drew a strong 5.2 rating in the 18-49 range, the best performance of any broadcast TV sitcom since The Big Bang Theory hit 5.5 in 2014, notes the Washington Post. Two other standout numbers: It grabbed 10% more viewers than tuned in for its 1997 finale, and is No. 2 for the season in terms of total viewership, behind the post-Super Bowl episode of This Is Us. One sentiment as a result is that voiced by Piers Morgan, who wrote, "A message there, methinks, for all the screaming Trump-hating liberals: not everyone in America thinks like you..." The reboot has eight more episodes to go, but this makes season two a "foregone conclusion," notes the Hollywood Reporter. And expect copycat networks to rush more blue-collar sitcoms into production. (More Roseanne Barr stories.)
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