Grey’s Anatomy season 18: Why are the ratings down?

We’re a handful of episodes now into Grey’s Anatomy season 18 and one surprising trend has emerged: The ratings are down. Not only that, but they’re down pretty significantly. So far this season almost 20% in live viewers and over 35% (!) in the ad-friendly 18-49 demographic. As a matter of fact, recent episodes of Station 19 have outperformed it and we wouldn’t have guessed that a couple of years back.

So what gives with some of this? Why have the numbers fallen so much? There are a few different things that could be looked at here, but we’d argue that the biggest issue traces back to last season and the pandemic. The medical drama took a controversial approach to handling the global health crisis and opted to make almost the entire season about it. Meredith was effectively away from the rest of the cast at the metaphorical beach for a huge chunk of the year, and over time, there was a lot of criticism that the show was no longer a distraction from the real world. It was often depressing and the return of Patrick Dempsey and some other familiar faces only works for so long.

When you look at the ratings for season 17, the show lost a good chunk of its viewers between its premiere and finale; think in terms of over a million people who were once watching live. Those viewers have not seemingly come back, and the high-profile return of Kate Walsh hasn’t brought in a significant chunk of nostalgia-hungry people, either.

Does all of this spell doom for the show’s long-term future? Probably not but at this point, it’s also not a trend we can ignore. Season 18 has been on for too long for this to be considered a flash in the pan; also, it’s been airing opposite football for a while and that can’t be an excuse.

Related – Check out more news on the next Grey’s Anatomy episode right now

Why do you think the Grey’s Anatomy season 18 ratings are down?

Be sure to share some of your thoughts right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, stick around for other news when it comes to the show. (Photo: ABC.)