The premiere telecast of Bounce TV’s first-ever original drama series, Saints & Sinners, has become the network’s #1 highest-rated and most-watched program in its history.The Saints & Sinners series premiere on Sunday, March 6 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) delivered 483,000 Households – the most for any program to date in Bounce TV’s four-and-a-half years on the air – and drove the network to its most-watched primetime ever (446,000 HHs).
Bounce TV encored Saints & Sinners Sunday at 12 Midnight ET/9:00 p.m. PT. The two airings combined to reach 1.3 million unduplicated viewers.
#SaintsAndSinners also trended nationally on Twitter and Facebook during the Sunday premiere.
“This is a watershed moment for Bounce TV. Having a huge, record-setting audience tune-in for the debut of an original series and the show becoming part of the national conversation socially, with #SaintsAndSinners trending alongside The Walking Dead, Downton Abbey and the Democratic Presidential Debate, is a tremendous achievement,” said Jonathan Katz, Chief Operating Officer of Bounce TV.
Other viewership highlights include Saints & Sinners ranking third among all ad-supported cable networks in the delivery of African Americans on Sunday night, second only to AMC (The Walking Dead) and Bravo (Real Housewives). In its competitive set, Bounce TV also beat BET and TVOne. The premiere telecast of Saints & Sinners outpaced BET in African-American HHs by 35% and by 31% in AA viewers 2+ and trounced TVOne by 70% in AA Homes and by 64% in AA viewers 2+.
Already off to a record-setting start, Saints & Sinners could get an even bigger lift when 33 Bounce TV affiliates air the HD series premiere episode on their primary channels this week. Major markets include: Chicago, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Memphis and more. Most of the stations are airing the episode in primetime, prime access or early fringe.
Saints & Sinners centers around the pursuit of power, intertwined with greed, deception, corruption and murder – all set against the backdrop of a large southern church. Greater Hope Baptist Church is the heartbeat of Cypress, GA, a large southern town outside Atlanta. As times changed and Cypress grew, so did Greater Hope’s influence. With the return of a prodigal son and a shocking crime that rattles the core of the community, long-kept secrets, deceit, jealousy and compromising sexual affairs threaten to destroy the heart of the church and shatter the lives of those within it.
Saints & Sinners stars Vanessa Bell Calloway (Shameless, Coming to America); Christian Keyes (Mistresses, Let’s Stay Together); Keith Robinson (Dreamgirls, This Christmas); Clifton Powell (Ray,Murder in the First); Gloria Reuben (Mr. Robot, ER); J.D. Williams (The Wire, The Good Wife); Jasmine Burke (The Vampire Diaries, Army Wives); Afemo Omilami (Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Forrest Gump) and Richard Lawson (Numb3rs, Wag the Dog).
Bounce TV will encore the Saints & Sinners series premiere this Friday, March 11 at 9:00 p.m. and Sunday, March 13 at 12:00 Noon. The second episode premieres Sunday, March 13 at 9:00 p.m. (ET)
Bounce TV is the only emerging broadcast network producing original scripted series. The network’s three originally-produced sitcoms Mann & Wife (First Season), In The Cut (First Season) and Family Time (Third Season) all set network records for viewership in 2015.
