Fox's 'Rent' was the lowest-rated live TV musical ever
- Fox's "Rent" was the lowest-rated live TV musical ever on Sunday with 3.4 million viewers.
- That's less than the previous lowest-rated musical, "A Christmas Carol," and far below the 18.6 million viewers of 2013's "The Sound of Music."
"Rent" was the latest musical to get the live-television treatment on Sunday, but viewers didn't flock to their TVs for this show like they have in the past.
"Rent" was the lowest-rated live TV musical ever, according to Variety, with 3.4 million viewers. That's lower than the previous lowest-rated show, "A Christmas Carol" in 2017, which pulled in 4.5 million viewers. It's way below the highest-rated live TV musical, "The Sound of Music," which had 18.6 million viewers on NBC in 2013.
The show still beat out its broadcast competition on Sunday, though, in all three hours of its run time.
The musical faced difficulty heading into Sunday, and not all of it was technically live. Cast member Brennin Hunt broke his foot just hours before the show began, forcing Fox to use some pre-taped segments throughout.
The show wasn't a hit with critics, either. The Hollywood Reporter called it "an uneven mess."
The New York Times wrote, "How do you measure three hours of chaotic visuals and middling audio most of us were never meant to see and hear? Mostly in disappointment, I guess, though this is what Fox gave us."