The Bachelor premiere: Arie Luyendyk Jr., Peter Kruas, and a ratings debate

With The Bachelor premiere airing on ABC come Monday night, now feels like the right time to initiate a debate that we often enjoy having at least once a year: Whether or not the franchise’s choice in lead actually matters all that much when it comes to the series’ overall ratings. How many people are out there are watching because of a specific person in the leading role? Are there that many people, or is the talk/threats by people to not watch  just internet bluster than reality?

Let’s start here by stating some of the base facts of the situation here: Arie Luyendyk Jr. is the star of The Bachelor this year and, as a result of that, many people are annoyed. There were a ton of fans out there rooting for Peter Kraus, and even beyond that there were three or four other names people were discussing before even coming around to Arie. (We know that Wells Adams was one of them, but given that he is currently dating Modern Family star Sarah Hyland it seems as though he’s not exactly hurting in the love department.) You can easily argue that picking Arie on the basis of this alone will hurt the ratings, but that may not be true based on the numbers from last season. The season starring Nick Viall, who was chosen in surprising fashion over Chase McNary and Luke Pell, ended up averaging a 2.3 rating in the demo. That was almost even with the edition starring the super-popular Ben Higgins the year before.

What this goes to show is fairly simple — the majority of viewers out there watch for the drama, and not so much because they find a particular lead appealing. Remember here that Juan Pablo Galavis’ season was an utter trainwreck and it was ratings gold. Therefore, we do expect Arie to do fairly well. He’s popular in Middle America — a region of the show not represented all that well on the internet — and he is from a very popular season of The Bachelorette.

The one concern that should be out there with Arie more so than being chosen over Peter is this: His season of The Bachelorette is five years old and he hasn’t exactly been a huge part of Bachelor Nation since. There are a number of new fans who have utterly no clue who he is. ABC has to figure out a way in which to sell him as a capable lead with an interesting story beyond just his job and that he hasn’t been in love since he was with Emily. We’re sure the ratings will be fine (they always are for this show), but it’s hard to think going into it that we’re gearing up for the biggest season to date.

Would they have been better if Peter was the lead? Maybe slightly, but the one thing that will probably cause the ratings to jump up is if there’s some big controversy that unfolds at some point during the year.

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