CBS reveals ratings shock after Gayle King 'freebie' space ride that has ruined Katy Perry's career

Daily Mail​

23-04-2025

CBS Mornings enjoyed a rare, first-place finish last week - an occurrence fueled by Gayle King's widely ridiculed trip to space.
Some 3.9 million viewers tuned into the spectacle the morning of April 14, new Nielsen numbers show.
NBC's Today, meanwhile, managed 2.489 million total viewers on average in the same week - while Good Morning America at ABC averaged 2.655 million.
Following Monday's performance, CBS Mornings dropped back to third - in both total viewers and the hallowed 25-54 demo.
The results show how CBS's gushing and glossy coverage of the all-female flight Monday managed to move the needle, despite earning criticism at the same time.
CBS News is among several news organizations that forbid anchors and reporters from accepting 'freebies' and gifts - and reports indicate the cost for a single seat on the same rocket King and Katy Perry flew on clocks in at six or seven figures.
It is still unclear who - if anyone - paid for King's jaunt into orbit.
Others are calling the carbon- - and money- -burning mission a tourist flight for rich, one seeking to check space travel off their respective bucket lists.
CBS and Blue Origin, meanwhile, have refused to say whether King was Jeff Bezos's guest. His fiancée Lauren Sanchez was part of the expedition. It lasted an entire 11 minutes - enough to briefly erase CBS's ratings woes on the morning show front.
Scroll down for video:
It was also enough to make CBS Mornings the only morning offering to record positive week-to-week gains in both overall viewers and those aged between 25 and 54.
GMA was down a respective six percent and eight percent in both categories, while Today dipped four percent in the former and seven in the latter.
When it came to the week on average, CBS Mornings still recorded 36,000 less than next-best NBC, even with extra sets of eyes brought by King's excursion.
In the advertiser coveted 25-54 demo, CBS Mornings, was up 10 percent year over year, showing how even young viewers tuned in.
Relative to 2024, CBS Mornings was up 13 percent in viewers in total - even with its 2,453,000 total for the week being the worst of the bunch.
Still, the statistics showed the Blue Origin flight bringing some respite in terms of ratings, despite it already looking like a PR debacle for those involved
This was after King, 70, compared herself to astronaut Alan Shephard. the first American to travel into space, and Perry, 40, emphatically kissed the ground upon touching down in West Texas.
She also scolded critics who branded the trip a 'space ride' and said using such language was sexist.
The optics of the mission have since been been branded as 'tone deaf' and 'embarrassing'.
Perry has become an international laughing stock and severely-damaged her reputation with her zero-gravity antics.
She posed for the camera with an excruciatingly earnest expression while in space, brandishing a daisy in honor of her daughter and plugging the set list for her upcoming tour.
Perry then tossed her hair melodramatically as she got back off the spacecraft before kissing the ground.
She waxed poetic about feeling 'super connected to love' after her post-flight photo-op, while thanking a reporter who referred to as 'an astronaut' rather than a passenger.
'It's not about singing my songs,' the American Idol judge who celebrated her 40th with Bezos and Sanchez before the election overseas said.
'It's about a collective energy in there. It's about us. It's about making space for future women and taking up space and belonging.'
Her comments, as did King's, spurred almost immediate backlash, leading an insider close to Perry to tell DailyMail.com she now regrets how she handled the trip
'Katy doesn't regret going to space,' the source said, adding how the star now regrets 'kissing the ground' after the flight as well as her 'close-up camera moments' inside the capsule
'It was life changing,' they went on, reiterating Perry's past, polarizing comments.
'What she does regret is making a public spectacle out of it,' the insider exclusively said.
A non-celebrity faces a $300,000 fare to make the same trip, and a group of media all stars that included Warner Bros. boss David Zaslav and former Sony chief Howard Stringer reportedly aired their disapproval during a dinner in Manhattan Monday.
The trip will have given Bezos'-owned Blue Origin hundreds of millions of dollars of free advertising.
Other members of the superrich will likely be rushing to pay for seats. And the slick, flawless flight will also likely help Bezos land exceptionally-lucrative federal government space exploration contracts that have helped make SpaceX owner Elon Musk the world's richest man.
Meanwhile, CBS's struggling morning show - helmed by King, Nate Burleson, and Tony Dokoupil - just posted its lowest ratings since relaunching in 2021, dipping below 1.87 million viewers.
In response, CBS is moving from its lavish Times Square studio, returning the show to a comparatively cramped space at the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th.