Sarah Palin’s Alaska Breaks TLC Record

Move over, Kate Gosselin: Sarah Palin’s Alaska broke TLC ratings records on Sunday night, bringing in almost five million viewers. According to Nielsen, the premiere averaged 4.96 million viewers for the first episode, with 1.8 million of them in the 25- to 54-year-old age bracket. The ratings make it the No. 1 program launch in the history of TLC, besting the previous record-holder, the What Not to Wear launch in 2003. As The Daily Beast’s Shushannah Walshe writes, Sarah Palin’s Alaska may be “the earliest, most expensive presidential campaign ad ever made.”