Showtime's 'The Reagans' a Ratings Dud

Despite the media uproar over "The Reagans," its premiere on Showtime didn't exactly set the cable world ablaze, according to Zap2it.com.

According to news reports, a little over 1 million viewers watched the three-hour movie, which did bring a larger-than-average audience to the pay-cable network Sunday, but not one big enough to rank in the Top 40 cable programs for last week.

Eschewing the Showtime offering, about 3.5 million people watched the season finale of HBO's "Carnivale" Sunday.

However, HBO is available in about three times as many homes as Showtime, which reaches between 12 million and 13 million subscribers.

Showtime has claimed that "The Reagans" was its highest-rated original movie in two years. Ironically, its ratings were close to that of another film about the Reagan White House, 2001's "The Day Reagan Was Shot."

"The Reagans" will repeat on Showtime twice in the next week and likely air in the future on the network's "multiplex" channels.

Showtime ended up with "The Reagans" after its Viacom sibling CBS opted not to air the movie for what CBS CEO Les Moonves termed "moral" reasons, saying the film didn't present a balanced view of former President Ronald Reagan.

CBS was also facing intense pressure from conservative groups to alter or scrap the film, but Moonves contends that wasn't a factor in his decision.

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