‘Duck Dynasty’ Cancelled Soon? Season 6 Ratings Need Success
Could we see Duck Dynasty cancelled by the A&E Network? It’s said that the Duck Dynasty Season 6 ratings numbers could definitely improve since the Duck Dynasty Season 5 finale failed to meet the high marks set by previous seasons.
In a related report by The Inquisitr, first a Michigan utility Duck Dynasty contest was cancelled over fears of a backlash from the homosexual community. Then poor ticket sales caused a live show for Duck Dynasty to be cancelled, as well. But the Duck Dynasty family doesn’t care and are even working with Tim Tebow on various Christian ministries.
Now the Duck Dynasty finale only drew six million viewers, which was an improvement of 28 percent when compared against the previous episode from Season 5, but was quite a large drop if compared against the 8.4 million viewers from the Season 4 finale. To put these ratings numbers in perspective, it’s been a steady decline since Season 3, which topped out at 9.6 million viewers. The highest ratings the show has ever seen was around 12 million viewers, so that means compared to the most popular episode of the whole show the Season 5 finale received about half the number of viewers.
The Duck Dynasty ratings plunge has seen various explanations, with many of them focused on the politics and beliefs of the Robertson family. One side is saying the ratings drop is due to a backlash against Phil Robertson’s biblically conservative viewpoint on homosexuality. At the same time, many hardcore fans of the show specifically boycotted A&E when the father figure was temporarily cast out of the reality TV show. The fans started social media campaigns to avoid watching the show and asked people to purchase Duck Commander merchandise instead of anything labeled with the Duck Dynasty brand name owned by A&E.
Although no one knows for sure why the audience has continued to dwindle, advocates of the latter point out that the peak of the Duck Dynasty ratings was over a year before Phil Robertson’s interview with GQ magazine. Fans of the show were at first excited because it was new and novel, but now interest is starting to fade naturally, not due to a politically correct backlash. There’s also the growing concern among some fans that the entire show is scripted and thus it’s argued that Duck Dynasty is fake. But opponents of that view point out how the Robertson family has complained about A&E attempting to remove their beliefs about Jesus from the TV show, so it can’t be fake (or are those interviews also fake?).
While there have been rumors of A&E working on a new unnamed Christian reality show, A&E is also unlikely to have Duck Dynasty cancelled soon because it’s still the number one cable TV show across all major demographics. Even with the lower ratings for Duck Dynasty Season 5 it place second for the 18 to 49 year old demographic highly sought by advertisers. The show is also more popular than American Idol, which continues to be renewed year after year. Of course, that does not mean A&E might not try and promote another reality TV show focused on a Christian family whose politics and beliefs align more closely with the A&E executives. There’s also the possibility that the Robertson family may eventually find their way onto a different network under a new name as they have threatened before… may I suggest Duck Legacy?
