The first episode of this installment premiered with record-low viewership for Bachelor Nation, according to Deadline. “Although the Season 17 premiere bowed to 3.59M viewers and a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic, per early Nielsen Live+Same Day numbers, it marked the lowest premiere in the series’ history,” the outlet reported.
“Lowest premiere” might not sound like a huge deal, but we’re talking about a more than 1 million-viewer dive. The premiere of the previous season of “The Bachelorette,” with Clare Crawley before she was replaced by Tayshia Adams, attracted 4.76 million viewers — a nearly 1.2 million difference.
Subsequent episodes have been even worse. The second episode dropped another several hundred thousand viewers to 3.2 million, which as the Daily Wire noted, brought it in “second to a rerun of the CBS sitcom ‘Neighborhood.’”
It might seem odd to criticize a show that still boasts millions of watchers. But a hemorrhage of one-quarter of a show’s audience is significant — especially when nothing substantively changed in the franchise except the injection of woke politics and subsequent ouster of a beloved host.
The out-of-touch Instagram influencer class that makes up the alumni roster of Bachelor Nation insisted the show needed to focus more on racial diversity and left-wing activism. “We are the women of Bachelor Season 25. Twenty-five women who identify as BIPOC were cast on this historic season that was meant to represent change,” the cast wrote online after the Harrison dust-up, condemning the then-host after his infamous interview with Rachel Lindsay. “We stand with [Lindsay], we hear her, and we advocate for change alongside her.”
This was all because Harrison merely pushed back on cancel culture following the emergence of photos of contestant Rachael Kirkconnell at an antebellum-themed party in college. The internet erupted, with a petition calling for the host’s permanent removal from the franchise and Lindsay going off about Harrison on podcasts and in interviews.
Many longtime fans of the show felt a little lost. They hadn’t been tuning in on Monday nights looking for the equivalent of left-wing talking points on corrupt cable news. They weren’t interested in virtue signaling or Ibram X. Kendi-esque lectures on the evils of whiteness from models and socialites. They wanted to watch a boyband manager wrestle shirtless, or try not to spew wine out of their own noses as they watched a diva sobbing because she accidentally shot champagne up her schnoz. That’s is what they wanted. This is what they’ve always wanted. And they wanted it without nonsense politics seeping in — not because they’re racist, but because they came to be entertained, not lectured.
The woke elites who are sinking the ship, of course, won’t take responsibility. An un-self-aware Chris Harrison pathetically grovels for forgiveness from people who don’t believe in it. And a bitter Rachel Lindsay blames the very people who ever gave her a platform in the first place: the viewers.
“The franchise has spent 19 years cultivating a toxic audience. … hateful, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and homophobic,” Lindsay wrote this week in New York Magazine. “They are afraid of change. They are afraid to be uncomfortable. They are afraid when they get called out.”
“Bachelor” fans aren’t afraid. They’re annoyed. And thanks to the poison of race obsession and cancel culture, they’re walking away 1 million at a time.
This article was originally published by The Federalist. Read the original article.
The Federalist is an online magazine that covers politics, policy, culture, and religion.
