25 years after Brandy and Whitney Houston led a groundbreaking reimagining of ‘Cinderella’ as America’s first Black princess and Fairy Godmother duo, the surviving cast members reunited for ABC’s ‘Cinderella: the Reunion, A Special Edition of 20/20.’
Broadcast Tuesday (August 23), the one-hour special – which aired as part of Disney’s World Princess Week – collected commentary from the 1997 film’s stars Whoopi Goldberg, Bernadette Peters, Jason Alexander, Veanne Cox, Paolo Montalban, Victor Garber, and more while exploring the EMMY-nominated movie’s cultural impact.
What’s more, the network aired ‘Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella’ for the first time in over two decades directly after the special.
The back-to-back television events served as quite the 1-2 punch for ABC, helping it secure some handsome viewership figures during Tuesday night’s primetime ratings race.
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Viewership: 2 Million
For its viewership hour, ABC’s ‘Cinderella’ reunion ranked #2 in viewership and ratings among broadcast networks (CBS, CW, NBC, FOX). Raking in 2.01 million pairs of eyes, the Brandy-led TV event was the night’s most-viewed special program. Its potency was only underscored by the additional 1.53 million who tuned in to watch the re-airing of the original 1997 ‘Cinderella.’
Among all nonscripted broadcast showings Tuesday night, the TV special’s ratings result was only bested by NBC’s ‘America’s Got Talent’ and ‘Password,’ which scored 6.33 million and 3.97 million viewers respectively.
If you missed the ‘Cinderella: The Reunion’ on August 23 it is now streaming on-demand via Hulu, ABC, and ABC.com.