FORT LAUDERDALE — (CNN) Viewership of this year’s Miss USA pageant plummeted to an all-time low after Donald Trump’s controversial statements caused it to be relegated to the little-known Reelz channel.
Sunday’s airing of the annual beauty pageant brought in only 925,000 viewers for the Reelz network, according to number released by ratings measurement company Nielsen on Tuesday.
This was an all-time low for the telecast.
This number was down sharply from the 5.5 million that watched last year’s edition when it was broadcast on NBC.
This was the first time since 2003 that the pageant wasn’t on the peacock network, and that was due to NBC cutting ties with Trump, an owner of the pageant.
Trump, who owns half of the Miss USA organization, made inflammatory remarks about Mexican immigrants during his presidential announcement speech in June calling some “rapists.”
This caused Univision to drop the pageant in protest, and NBC later followed suit.
Reelz stepped in to air the event that took place on Sunday.
“Miss USA” has seen big numbers over the years topping out with nearly 40 million viewers in the late 1970s.
Before this year’s viewership, the lowest the event dipped was in 2013 with 4.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen
The numbers may be a record low for “Miss USA” but are good numbers for Reelz, which is a somewhat obscure cable channel that is available in 67 million of roughly 100 million cable-connected homes in the United States, according to the company.
The 2015 Miss USA pageant took place in Baton Rouge, La.
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