Monday night’s premiere of “The Bachelorette” hit an all time low in the ratings.
The show drew 3.6 million viewers, as opposed to the 5 million that tuned in for the last “Bachelorette” premiere.
The fans either hate the show now after this past spring’s mishegos with Matt James on “The Bachelor” or they miss Chris Harrison, who’s not returning after 19 seasons.
Or maybe it’s both and they hate Harrison for his racism flap with Rachel Lindsay but I doubt it.
I’m not defending Harrison, but Lindsay caught him off guard and he was programmed to speak the company line. I doubt he was even thinking anything more than ‘defend Rachael Kirkconnell, she’s still on the show, I work for ABC.”
Well, it all went wrong. Harrison came off as defending Kirkconnell’s racist past, Lindsay– a trained lawyer– went after him, and the rest is misery.
Now the show has returned and dropped 1.4 million viewers in the process. Will it recover? I don’t think so. And ABC is committed to a lot of Bachelor Nation shows for the next six months. More “Bachelorette” and also “Bachelor in Paradise.” They’ve got guest hosts, rotating hosts, and as we know from “Jeopardy!” that doesn’t work.
They should have just put Harrison on “Jimmy Kimmel,” let him dig himself out of the hole, and move on. But they’re cowards, network executives, so they cut bait and ran. Now we’ll watch “The Bachelorette” sink over the next few weeks.
