‘Devious Maids’ season 3, ‘UnREAL’ premiere ratings are in for Lifetime

While we found Lifetime’s original series “UnREAL” to be thoroughly entertaining, we recognized early on that there could also be one significant cause for concern with the series: Who is this show really for, other than cynical TV critics or former reality show participants who know what is in the special sauce? It’s a hard sell, especially when the reason so many watch “The Bachelor” to be completely swept up in the fantasy of it all. Sure, people out there assume that it is far from authentic most of the time, but they want to believe in it because everyone likes a good love story.

As a whole, “UnREAL” premiered to middling-at-best numbers, scoring just a 0.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic to go along with just under 820,000 total viewers, according to Deadline. Meanwhile, its lead-in in “Devious Maids” brought in 1.47 million viewers to go along with a demo rating of 0.5. This is a solid total for the series in its third season, which has become over time one of the signature hits of the network. Since Lifetime operates on advertising, they are going to rely more on the demo than other measures in order to determine a show’s longevity.

Is there still hope for a show like “UnREAL”? Sure, mostly in that it is still only one episode old, critics seem to love it for the most part, and the buzzy premise alone could get it headlines. There’s no reason for them to give up on the show anytime soon, but this may be another cause for alarm that the average viewer these days isn’t really interested in new reality TV concepts … or drama series skewering old reality TV concepts.

We did recently post our review of the “UnREAL” premiere, and you can see that now over at the link here!

Also, sign up today to get some other TV news on all we cover sent over in your direction, courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: Lifetime.)