‘Duck Dynasty’ sets new series high, throttles ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’

Before “Duck Dynasty” and “American Horror Story: Asylum” each premiered earlier this fall, we have to admit that there was no way in the world that we suspected that the former show would end up dominating the latter in just about all key ratings measures, but it is happening. Not only that, but the Robertson family is quickly emerging as the second-strongest show on television save for “CSI” in its Wednesday night timeslot.

Overall, the first half-hour of “Duck Dynasty” last night drew a record 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic, and also over 4.4 million viewers. If you compare this to “American Horror Story,” the Duck Commander gang won the night by a grand total of a 0.4 in the demo as well as 1.7 million viewers. A&E has to be thrilled with these numbers, and you may as well expect a season 3 renewal to be coming up at some point in the near future.

But will this series be able to keep this sort of positive momentum up? At the moment, this is the question that we have to ask ourselves given that “Duck Dynasty,” like many reality shows, has a difficult future ahead of it. As these people start to become more and more famous, the show runs the risk of becoming inauthentic since it will be more obvious how self-aware these people are of what they are doing it. This has at times been apparent in season 2, where some stories feel a little bit too much like things we have already seen before; plus, the scenes with the children feel straight out of  a sitcom.

Are you surprised at all by the “Duck Dynasty” domination, especially against a show like “American Horror Story” at the same time?