Why ABC’s The Mayor is a show in need of saving
While there are many fall series that seem to take a while to get a little momentum happening and find their voice, The Mayor is one that seemed to have it all straight from the pilot. It’s funny, inventive, and also heartfelt — three things that you rarely find together in a comedy. It also has a great cast, with Yvette Nicole Brown (her best role since Community) and Lea Michele joining relative newcomer Brandon Michael Hall. Also, it’s got a pretty fantastic premise: A rapper who decides to run for Mayor as a publicity stunt and ends up getting the gig. It’s timely and silly, but also incredibly charming.
Unfortunately, this is a show also facing a very uncertain future. At the moment its season 1 ratings are far from stellar. It’s averaging just a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and just this past week it fell to a new low in a 0.7 rating. There is a significant caveat there in that the episode aired on Halloween, but at the same time you cannot just ignore the numbers for whatever excuse that you want to make about them. Some shows out there did perform much better on the same night with the same obstacles.
If the ratings continue to slide, it really doesn’t matter just how good The Mayor is — it’s probably not going to be picked up for more episodes beyond this season. This is why we want to get some sort of positive momentum started now — check out the first episode or two of the show online (it’s on Hulu) and then get on board. Yes, we understand that it’s a half-hour network comedy and those aren’t necessary the most popular right now, just as we also understand that it’s not super-convenient for anyone to watch television live in 2017. We also understand that the show airs opposite This Is Us. Still, give it a try — it’s one of the best new shows of the fall season and it needs a little more love to continue. This Is Us already has a season 3 and it doesn’t need your love and attention anywhere near as much as this show does.
Watching shows live does still matter — sure, the Nielsen rating system is super-outdated, but just in terms of proportions there’s gotta be someone reading this article with a Nielsen box, right? (These are the people who help to calculate viewership measurements.) If enough of these people convert it could help to turn the tide for The Mayor — ABC seems to love the show and will find a way to keep it if there’s hope that it will perform better.
For the record, Brown herself is doing her part to speak about the current state of The Mayor and its ratings — take a look at some of her tweets below.
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