Jemele Hill's Future at ESPN Remains Unclear After Suspension

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Then there is the show itself, dubbed SC6. What Hill and co-host Michael Smith envisioned, what made their chemistry honest and unique on the ESPN2 show His and Hers and their podcasts together, is being slowly chopped away by the addition of segments you see on traditional SportsCenter shows. Those include interviews with reporters in the field and blocks that feature the kind of short, bite-sized takes viewers get on shows such as Around The Horn. Multiple people told me last week that there is an effort to bring in ESPN talent as guests with opinions counter to the hosts. If I had to bet, I would bet that at this time next year the 6 p.m. ET slot is either a standard version of SportsCenter or some sort of PTI-extension. I would also bet that Hill is elsewhere.

Miller said he believes there is a fundamental flaw in assigning opinion-first talent to SportsCenter.

“I don’t think it is going to make it,” Miller said. “I think it was an experiment where the [SportsCenter] brand is being challenged technologically and by a host of other challenges in the marketplace, and they were trying to figure out ways to rescue it in a different way. You know what? That is great. That is what networks and executives are supposed to do. You try things and you don’t necessarily bat 1.000%. I think in this case, I think there is enough evidence and minds along the road to say we tried and we are going to figure out something different. If there is one takeaway from this whole SC6 experiment it is to make sure that if you are going to have someone with bold opinions and lot of gumption that you put them in an environment do that.”

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For the week of Sept. 26-29, 2017, Pucci’s last post on ESPN ratings, SC6 averaged 508,000 viewers including 277,000 adults 18-49. One year earlier in the same week (Sep. 27-30 & Oct. 2), the SportsCenter 6:00 p.m. show averaged 475,000 and 245,000 adults 18-49. That is a 6.9 percent increase in overall viewership.

You can also find weeks where the show is down: For example: For Sep. 12-15, 2017, SC6 averaged 448,000 viewers, down 20.2 percent from the 562,000 viewers for the corresponding week in 2016 when Hill and Smith were not hosts. The show averaged 408,000 viewers (and 215,000 adults 18-49) from Oct. 3-6, 2017. That was down from 477,000 from Oct. 4-7, 2016, per Pucci. Then there are the weeks that are flat: The 6:00 p.m. SportsCenter averaged 469,000 viewers for Oct 11-13, 2016. Last week, from Oct. 10-12, it averaged 463,000 viewers.

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