Did Connie Britton’s exit impact Nashville season 5 ratings?
When you look at all of the different shows that are on the bubble right now, Nashville is arguably one of them that is in the strangest position … and there’s a super-specific reason for that. Basically, half of the show’s success now is measure by Hulu. They’re helping to keep the show afloat, but they have no obligation to release any ratings.
With that in mind, we’ve got less to go on than usual when analyzing CMT ratings, but we definitely think it’s important this week to break down Rayna’s death episode in terms of the impact it had on viewership. Is it true that nobody knew in advance she would die this week? For the most part yes, other than a few people who may have pieced recent comments and news-items together. For everyone else, they likely knew that her life was in jeopardy and that could’ve been reason enough to tune in.
The good news for the episode is that the show didn’t lose any steam. In terms of the 18-49 demographic (remember we’re speaking about live+same day numbers only here), the show drew in total a 0.2 rating. In total viewers, the output was a little bit better, given that the 930,000 viewers a high for the month of February.
This is where the true test begins
How many viewers will watch the show moving into next week, when Rayna is no longer around? At first, it’s fair to assume that there will be a ratings increase just on the basis of curiosity. This often happens following a devastating character death, since you want to see how a show moves forward and how the character is honored. In this case, it’s all the more important given that Connie Britton was the lead.
Beyond that, we expect that we’ll really get a true assessment of the Nashville faithful. It makes sense that there could be complication emotions out there. Some loyal Rayna fans may feel like had the story ended with season 4, they could’ve imagined her with a happier ending; this is surely not what they expected when the show was saved by CMT. However, this is a story that is true to life. It may be hard to swallow, but it’s real and it shakes up the show.
If you missed it, you can preview what’s coming up beyond Rayna’s death episode by heading over here.
What do you think is going to happen to Nashville and its ratings as a result of losing Britton? Share in the comments. (Photo: TNT.)