Nov 23 2010
Palin’s show in trouble on TLC? Not at all
The reporting is either lazy or agenda-driven… hard to tell which, in the yahoo story that ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ ratings drop 40 percent in week two
A week after a record-breaking debut, Sarah Palin’s reality show saw its audience drop nearly 40 percent on Sunday night.
According to preliminary ratings, just 3 million people watched the second episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” That’s down from the nearly 5 million who watched the Nov. 14 debut episode, which was the highest-rated premiere episode in TLC’s history.
One problem: Palin’s show is losing ground with viewers aged 18-49. Per The Hollywood Reporter’s James Hibbard, just 885,000 in that key viewing demographic watched the show—down 44 percent from last week. The median age of the show: 57 years old—15 years older than the average TLC viewer.
So what’s wrong with the story? It suggests that Palin’s Alaska is in trouble in as a show, or is a disappointment in some way. But the reality is quite different. Even with a “mere” 3 million viewers, it easily tops the best ratings TLC ever gets for it’s most popular shows. It wouldn’t have taken the reporter for the story above long to find this information, if the reporter had bothered to look.
As the 2012 election heats up, look for worse and worse reporting on Palin. Ignore most of it.
