Samantha Bee, the host of TBS’s Full Frontal, is getting a lot of attention in the wake of her return to television following outrage over her use of a vulgar term to refer to President Trump’s daughter Ivanka. In a two-minute cold open to her show Wednesday night, the comedian noted that she’s used the so-called “c-word” on her show before, and has tried to “reclaim” it, but still apologized for applying it as an insult to Ivanka.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPAqgjqSDos[/embed]
The President had slammed Bee and her show on Twitter as the controversy erupted last week:
[embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1002508937445478402[/embed]
So we know how President Trump feels about Full Frontal. But what about viewers? We turned to emotional measurement AI company Canvs for some insights. A few key findings:
• Full Frontal is the most emotionally reacted-to TBS comedy series on social media and averages 8.3x more reactions than other programs across networks.
• “Love” is the most popular Emotional Reaction (ER) expressed about Full Frontal on social media, making up nearly half of all ERs about the show (48.7%).
• Full Frontal has a 13.6x higher love reaction and 84.5% higher funny reactions than the average comedy series on TV.
As for last night’s episode, the top Emotional Reaction was love, which prompted 35% of all emotions around the show and was driven primarily by Bee’s on-air apology. Other top emotions were enjoy (15.2%) and funny (8.6%).
And last night, Bee was the biggest driver of emotions across all comedy series, generating 3.8x higher reactions and 4.2x higher love than the average driver.
Who watches Full Frontal week after week? According to Inscape, the TV measurement company with glass-level data from a panel of more than 8 million smart TVs and devices, fans of comedy:
For a broader view, Broadcasting & Cable did a ”Deep Dive Into Current Viewership Trends for Late-Night Talk Shows” in February, and found that most people are watching these shows live, but Full Frontal has more DVR viewership than the other late night shows.
