Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Who Is America?’ Enjoys Solid Debut Ratings

By Joe Otterson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – The series premiere of Sacha Baron Cohen’s “This Is America” got off to a respectable start in the ratings on Sunday.

The show’s debut on Showtime’s linear channel drew a modest 0.1 rating in adults 18-49 and 327,000 viewers, airing at 10 p.m. However, streaming and On Demand viewing added another 301,000 viewers to that total, bringing the show to 628,000. also aired multiple encores of the premiere, which bring its viewership haul to just over 1 million for the night. The show will also likely see significant lift in delayed viewing.

A 10-minute preview of the series posted on Showtime’s YouTube channel on Sunday has also garnered over 10 million views.

According to Showtime, “Who Is America?” also drove the highest sign-ups of any series for the Showtime streaming service in a single day in 2018, and it was the third best day for series’ premiere day sign ups since the service launched.

Written and directed by Cohen, the seven-episode series explores individuals known and unknown across the American political spectrum. It sees the actor and comedian return to the form that launched his career, staging “Da Ali G Show”-style interviews with a range of subjects including Sarah Palin, Joe Walsh, and Roy Moore.

This is the second TV project for Cohen announced in recent months. In April, it was announced he has been cast in the lead role of the Netflix limited series “The Spy.” He will play real-life spy Eli Cohen, who performed espionage for Israel in Syria in the early 1960s.