‘Duck Dynasty’ season 6 premiere ratings show further fatigue
After looking at the premiere numbers for “Duck Dynasty” season 6, it is clear now that when it comes to ratings alone, the show is going the way of “Jersey Shore” and so many other reality TV phenomenons before it. It has a great run that lasts for a while, but overtime the numbers start to come back down to earth.
Let’s start by putting this in some perspective. The 4.3 million viewers who watched the premiere on A&E last night is a good figure, and the demo rating is probably still going to be high enough to finish at the top of the TV leaderboard for the night. These are still good ratings for cable, even if they are not the ratings that they once were.
For many, the biggest debate when it comes to this show is going to be trying to attribute the fall to something. The natural tendency for many in the media to do is to blame solely the controversial remarks made by Phil Robertson to GQ Magazine, and to an extent, the numbers suggest that this is fare. Ratings have fallen harshly since the start of that controversy, just as exposure for the Robertson family on a public stage has.
However, there are also some other factors that need to be considered as well. While the numbers probably would not have tumbled as quickly, the show was on a downward trend anyway thanks simply to the show being on a billion times a day. A&E, likely sensing the trajectory for shows in this genre, decided that the best thing that it could do here was make as much money as humanly possible on the show in a short amount of time before things started to go south.
With all this being said, we feel like so long as the ratings stay above 3 million, “Duck Dynasty” will probably last as long as the Robertsons want it to. It remains a huge platform for their Duck Commander product line, and allows them to have so many other opportunities to raise profits.
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Photo: A&E