Comey interview draws 9.8 million for ABC, less than Country Music Awards on CBS

Former FBI Director James Comey’s Sunday night interview on ABC drew 9.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research ratings.

That was less than the 12.1 million viewers CBS’s broadcast of Country Music Awards drew. The awards show began at 8 p.m. and ran through the 11 p.m. hour, while Comey’s interview ran from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.

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The Sunday night interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos was Comey’s first since being fired by President Trump last May.

The 9.8 million figure fell well-short of the Stormy Daniels interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” three weeks ago, which drew 22 million viewers.

It was also almost 10 million less than the number of viewers who tuned in for Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee last June, which nabbed 19.5 million viewers.

The interview, which was more than five hours long and edited down for the one hour special, included Comey’s assertion that the president acts “like a mob boss” and is “morally unfit” to sit in the Oval Office, among other jabs that included mocking the size of the president’s hands, his height and his tan.

The president has slammed Comey on Twitter over the past few days, calling him “a weak and untruthful slimeball,” “slippery” and “the WORST FBI Director in history.”

Comey is scheduled to make a handful of other stops to promote his book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” including interviews with Fox News’s Bret Baier, CNN’s Jake Tapper and PBS’s Judy Woodruff.

The former FBI director will also appear at a town hall on CNN hosted by Anderson Cooper at Comey’s alma mater of William & Mary, as well as opinion and entertainment programs such as ABC’s “The View,” CBS’s “The Late Show” and MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Comey’s book is already at No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list ahead of its Tuesday release.