TV Column: ‘The Newsroom’s’ ratings, and Dan Rather’s review

Nearly 3 million people caught the launch of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” on Sunday.

About 2.1 million of that crowd watched the show’s 10 p.m. unveiling. That audience puts “The Newsroom” in company with some of HBO’s most-watched recent premieres, including those of fantasy drama “Game of Thrones” (2.2 million) in April 2011 and vampire drama “True Blood” (1.4 million) in September of ’08.

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Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Jane Fonda and Kristin Davis attend the Hollywood premiere of 'The Newsroom”--a new HBO series from “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin.

Considering “The Newsroom’s” shocking lack of nudity, graphic sex and violence, severed heads of former presidents on sticks, dragons or vampires, this is quite an accomplishment for the new Sorkin drama.

I mean, “The Newsroom” is just a behind-the-scenes look at the anchor (Jeff Daniels) of a nightly cable news show, his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), his staff and their boss (Sam Waterston) as they engage in a quixotic effort to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and personal entanglements!

HBO’s biggest premiere since 2008 is Martin Scorsese’s Steve Buscemi-starring gangster drama, “Boardwalk Empire” (4.8 million viewers) in September of ’10.

Starting Monday, HBO made the first episode of “The Newsroom” available for free to non-subscribers on HBO.com, YouTube, DailyMotion, TV.com, on various on-demand platforms, and on iTunes.

Sorkin’s show got mixed reviews before its unveiling. Longtime CBS evening news anchor Dan Rather, who was assigned to review “The Newsroom” by Gawker.com, noted that such “high-profile publications” as the New Yorker and the New York Times panned the pilot episode, but that he liked it.

Anyway, Rather said he liked it because it had “got it right” qualities that outweighed Sorkin’s tendency to “overtalk it” and to be “preachy.”

Yes, Dan Rather found it too preachy. That’s rich.

“There is a battle for the soul of the craft that goes on daily now in virtually every newsroom in the country,” Rather preached in his review.

“It’s a fight that matters, not just for journalists but for the country. It centers on whether news reporting is to be considered and practiced — to any significant degree, even a little — as a public service, in the public interest, or is to exist solely as just another money-making operation for owners of news outlets.”

Rather continued: “This is the battle being lost in almost every newsroom, in every place around the world. Ratings (or circulation), demographics, and profits rule. Any talk of the public interest or of doing quality journalism of integrity with guts is considered passé.”

In the comments section, however, Gawker regular John Cook dismissed Rather’s review entirely, calling “The Newsroom” “a seminal document in the long, sad history of Sorkinism.”

Daytime Emmys ratings

About 912,000 people watched the Daytime Emmy Awards on HLN on Saturday night.

HLN noted happily that it was the most-watched regularly scheduled, non-news telecast in the network’s history.

But, of course, everything is relative. And for the Daytime Emmy Awards, 912,000 is its smallest audience ever — and a nosebleed-inducing dive relative to the 5.5 million viewers that the trophy show clocked last year on CBS, or the 5.6 million in 2010, also on CBS.