‘Jersey Shore’ season 6 ratings: The good and the bad news

Even though final seasons for many shows tend to at least get a slight bump up in the ratings, we weren’t exactly expecting this to happen when it came to “Jersey Shore.” Why? Few shows have been victim to as much overkill as Snooki, JWoww, and Pauly D have as of late. There were two spin-offs that aired between season 5 and 6, and really with this in mind there really wasn’t a period longer than two weeks where there wasn’t something related to these people on the air since January. Plus, you also have to remember that popularity has waned for some of these people following Snooki’s popularity, and the claims that everyone was more “mature” did not bode well for a show that was originally all about partying. (Personally, we found the premiere to be rather boring.)

With all of this in mind, MTV is probably pretty pleased with the fact that the series ended up drawing a 2.5 and a 2.3 rating in the 18-49 demographic (which is key for ad revenue) for their two episodes that aired on Thursday night. These numbers are far and away better than what “The Pauly D Project” and “Snooki & JWoww” drew, and they also are better than the performance of new programming on either NBC or ABC at the same time (or any non-sports program on cable for the night). In case you are interested in total viewers, the numbers were, respectively, 4.7 million and 4.2 million.

However, just look at this for some greater perspective here of how far this series has slid: season 5 premiered to a 4.0 rating earlier this year, which is massive for any show regardless of where it airs. This rating was even higher back in seasons 3 and 4, and we expect it to drop as this season goes on based on all of the complaints about the first two episodes being dull.

Are you happy with how “Jersey Shore” premiered given how there are so many other trendy options at the moment?