Bomani Jones Ends First Season Losing Almost All of HBO's Viewers

The 11 pm hour on HBO Sunday was a mixed bag of results. From 11 to 11:30 ET, HBO drew 662,000 viewers. That's good. Then, from 11:30 to midnight, HBO drew only 139,000. That's terrible.

How does that happen? How does a network lose 523,000 viewers in half an hour?

Yep, you guessed it. Only one man could tank the ratings like that: Bomani Jones.

with Bomani Jones ended its first season on Sunday by losing almost all of the viewers his lead-in, John Oliver, handed him. Eighty percent of them, to be exact.

And if it weren't for Oliver, Jones would draw a CNN+ number. The one week Oliver was off, Jones failed to crack even 45,000 viewers.

Race Theory is the lowest-rated show in modern HBO history. Its first season rewrites the meaning of the word pathetic. Using online records, we could find only two talk shows that have ever failed as badly as this show has:

High Noon with Bomani Jones on ESPN and The Right Time with Bomani Jones on ESPN Radio, both of which ESPN canceled.

That's it. Besides those two shows, nothing has ever failed like Race Theory has. So just put the ball in Bomani Jones' hands and watch him miss the shot.

Of course, we are still expecting HBO to renew Jones for a second season out of fear. We explainedwhy last week:

That's what privilege looks like.

Some TV hosts use their highlight reels to earn promotions. Others use their looks. Some use backstage politics. Jones, meanwhile, uses the threat of calling his bosses racist.

No one has ever been rewarded for failing more than Bomani Jones has. His one true gift, besides losing ratings, is pressuring networks into giving him a new show after his previous show tanks. 

Congratulations on your first season, Bomani.