Broadcast ratings woes continued Tuesday as “Glee” and “Dancing with the Stars” both sank to season lows.
For “Glee,” it meant dropping to a 3.7 adults 18-49 rating with only 9.66 million viewers. Far and away its worst performance of the season, “Glee” still managed to top all of broadcast in the demo thanks to “NCIS” airing a re-run.
How “Glee” rebounds from this low will be interesting. Working in the show’s favor is the fact that FOX is heavily-hyping next week’s Lady Gaga-themed, supersized episode. Working against it is the fact that “Glee” fans might remember that the show already aired a Lady Gaga-themed episode.
“Dancing with the Stars,” meanwhile, dipped slightly to a 2.9 adults 18-49 rating with 15.84 million viewers for its results show. If it sees no improvement in the finals, that would also be a season low. Lead-out “Body of Proof” continues to retain fairly well, and at a 2.4 with 11.51 million viewers, it might have a shot at renewal.
While the NBA Playoffs undoubtedly provided some competition, it is unclear how dramatically they would have affected the female-skewing “Glee” and “Dancing.”
Glee started out as perfect family fare for all kids and adults. It was a real role model. When it inserted a running gay theme, it lost out hugely with the mainstream, and their misguided producer is just taking it further astray from its cleancut beginnings. Most parents just don’t want their kids exposed to this theme, and so it loses out in ratings. As a former school teacher, I noted in sex ed classes that when told how homosexuals make love in clinical terms, 95% of the kids drew back their heads and screwed up their faces in disgust as they said, in chorus, “Ewwwww!” You really lost ’em with that agenda! Keep featuring the kids, lose the fringe politics, and realize how conservative the audience is about what they want their kids exposed to in their formative years. Showcase talented kids, not adult guests. I didn’t tune in because of adults, but because it reminded me of the joys of singing in the school choir, which has legions of sentimental adults as well as schoolchildren as potential viewers. Keep it clean, fools! Mainstream it! We are all really tired of agendas and just want to see a show about good singing and ordinary human interest! That is how it started out, and I miss that. As for Dancing with the Stars, when they stop casting Playboy bunnies, they’ll get more viewers. Nobody likes them, and women, particularly, who are half the audience, really hate them! What’s with that, anyway? Does that old Satan, Hugh Hefner, own a share in the show? PLEASE keep the slutty element out of it! I’m no fan of criminals and rappers, either. Why employ them? The stupid gangsta rapper who finally cleaned up to dance as a refined man about town may give other gangsta fools hope to get out of that life, and I sure hope he rethinks his own life, as he has plentiful physical gifts for terpsichoral talents even if he has meatloaf between his ears for brains. I am enjoying the show myself, though the revealing costumes on the women turn me off. Backless, frontless, and sheer skirts and extremely short skirts don’t do anything for ME! I just get embarrassed for the women and for myself as a woman being put down by the producers! Put the men in thongs if you want a skin show! And have the audience throw dollar bills at them. I love the dancing. There is really good quality dancing in this current crop of performers. Paying a real star now and then to appear as a competitor would also help ratings. Kirsty is the only real star in the cast. It is interesting to see that she is really sweet and kind and affectionate, though the costumers have made some blunders like putting her into pants for one number. I am still watching, anyway. American Idol is being smarter about production values this year. Kudos for them!
The theory posted above, specifically the idea that Glee has left its supposed family roots and parents are now not willing to support it anymore because of a “running gay theme”, is proven wrong by the ratings. Night of Neglect, the latest episode, was perhaps the most tame of the season and it had less than 10 million viewers. Sexy, which warranted a pre-show parental warning and had numerous references to sex, had about 13 million and the episode that followed it, Original Song (which featured Kurt and Blaine kissing) had more than 11 million. I suspect the ratings dip this time just had to do with the show having a mini hiatus and having little promotion for the return. Also, the idea that Glee was ever role-model family affair – frequently cited by some viewers – perplexes me given that some of the most inappropriate jokes in this series’s run came in the initial episodes! The second episode, for example, featured a hugely inappropriate – and pretty funny – joke about oral sex when Emma goes to check on an attempting to throw up Rachel. It was never wholesome family fare! It was always snarky and inappropriate, and there was always a gay character (Kurt) in the spotlight.