Angela Lansbury and Lawrence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate is the highest- rated show in public television’s primetime week of July 19-25

The original version of the film The Manchurian Candidate is drawing an impressive audience on public televison while the remake of the film is having commercial success in theaters.

The 1962 original, which features Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury, aired Saturday, July 24 at 8:00 PM on KQED/San Francisco and earned a 5.7 household rating and an 11 share, public television’s best rating of the day. It also aired on KCTS, at 10:00 PM on Friday, July 30 and earned a 3.2 rating and a 7 share.

“All the buzz around the new film helped the original,” said Scott Dwyer, KQED’s program manager. “Timing around the national convention, the release of the new Denzel Washington remake of the film, and the fact that the original is a classic were the reasons for the success,” added Eric Maki, program manager of KCTS.

KQED and KCTS are not the only stations having success with this film. During the week of July 19 to July 25, The Manchurian Candidate aired in 9 markets and averaged a 3.05 rating and a 5 share across primary stations, making it the highest-rated show of the week in primetime on a public station. It also did well the following week of July 26 to August 1, with 10 primary station broadcasts, a 2.67 average rating and a 5 share. The Saturday, July 31, 8:00 PM broadcast on KTCA/Minneapolis-St. Paul earned public television’s highest rating of that day with a 4.4 rating and a 10 share.

The Manchurian Candidate was the week’s top-rated program after the highly successful coverage of the Democratic National Convention. In fact, if the DNC broadcasts are averaged together, the film tops them as highest-rated program of these two weeks, when it was aired 19 times by 16 primary stations.