‘Divide & Conquer’ Trips & Stumbles In A&E Debut

Divide & Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes notched 228K viewers in its debut on A&E Sunday night – the cable net’s second smallest primetime audience of 2019 to date. That includes 52K viewers in the 18-49 demo. In the older news demo, viewers aged 25-54 years old, the Roger Ailes biopic clocked 74K viewers.

That’s 66% shy in total viewers, and 77% in the news demo, and 80% in the demo compared to the network’s averages in the timeslot calendar year to date.

Theatrically, Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes  – one of several Ailes biographical projects in the works for big and small screens – debuted in December and grossed $38.5K in its 5 week platform release.

Using archival footage and interviews, Bloom details how Ailes helped steer Nixon, Reagan, two Bushes and one Trump into the White House.

Rolling Stone described Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes as a “well-researched and richly observant documentary from Alexis Bloom about the climate of lies and systemic abuse that nurtured Ailes and allowed his behavior to flourish.”

As described by A&E, the Bloom-directed documentary, from Alex Gibney and A&E IndieFIlms, “fused the personal, the political and the just plain surreal as it charts the origin, rise and downfall of Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes” –  the “bulldog” and “kingmaker” who “collected talent like dolls, and became consumed by paranoia about his own personal security.”