Ratings: ‘The Americans’ season 3 stays on the bubble; ‘Duck Dynasty’ is still around

We know that FX wants to make more of “The Americans.” They made that intention very clear at the TCA Winter Press tour event recently. However, there is a difference ultimately between wanting there to be more of the show, and then there actually being more of the show. It all depends on the numbers.

So with the latest ratings from yesterday in mind, we’re worried already. We are talking here about just a 0.3 rating int he 18-49 demographic and over 900,000 viewers. While we know the show gets traction elsewhere, including DVR ratings and on Amazon Prime, we’re probably never going to be that confident in its future so long as the ratings are what they are. The fact that the series remains of such high quality is really the biggest thing that it continues to have going for it at this particular moment.

In other interesting ratings news … “Duck Dynasty” is apparently airing new episodes? We’re not saying this to mock the show by any means, but more to just comment on how different the market is for the A&E series to what it was even a year or so ago. It scored a 0.7 rating last night, which is a tiny fraction of what it had at its peak. Still, this is enough to make it one of the highest-rated cable shows on the night, and so long as the price is right and the Robertsons are still interested, we assume they will keep making them.

Of course, the biggest thing that we wonder here is whether or not this big decline is attributed mostly to the controversial comments of series star Phil Robertson, or of a natural decline that happens to most reality shows a few years in. It may be both. This is something that happened with “Jersey Shore,” and “Snooki & JWoww” actually aired their series finale last night with little fanfare and with a 0.5 rating.