Did this season go by fast or slow for you? Normally for me the season seems to go as it always does. I never think it goes too quick or too slow. Probably because it’s the same format and same number of episodes every season. Katie’s is only 10 episodes total, one less than the usual 11. Does that make it seem quicker? Meh, not for me really. I just think it starting later than usual threw me off. The last 7 or 8 “Bachelorette” seasons have all started in May and ended right at the end of July. Katie’s finale is August 9th, so, maybe that’s what seems off. Whatever the case, we’re only 3 weeks away and a lot of messiness still to come in those final 2 episodes, with most people focusing on this fight between Greg and Katie that happens at some point during overnights. Last Wednesday’s column has the info of what I heard about it since it was the most asked question this season. It will definitely dominate the conversation over the last two episodes for sure.
Ratings are in from Monday night, and if there’s one thing this season has been, it’s consistent. Granted overall the numbers haven’t been great, but they’ve also not fluctuated really at all, either high or low. Never has high as 3.7 million viewers this season, never as low as 3.1 million, and even that was only 1 week. You take out week 4’s rating, and this show remained between 3.3 million and 3.7 million in the other six weeks. There’s usually a bigger fluctuation than that. Next week will be low because it’s a Tell All show (those never do well), but lets see how much the show jumps up in it’s penultimate and finale episodes. History shows up there will definitely be an uptick, because naturally people wanna see what happens. Just a matter of how much of an uptick there is. Matt didn’t have much at all from first episode to last. Neither did Clare’s season. But, those were also both during the pandemic, as is this one, so we’ll see. Just look at these episode viewerships of the last five seasons from first episode to last:
Colton: 1st ep (5.1 millon), Finale (8.2 million)
Hannah: 1st ep (4.67 million), Finale (7.4 million)
Peter: 1st ep (6 million), Finale (8.5 million)
Clare/Tayshia: 1st ep (4.7 million – Clare, 5.4 million – Tayshia), Finale (5.2 million)
Matt: 1st ep (5 million), Finale (5.3 million)
Here are the IG stats from the final 7 guys on Katie’s season:
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Now, I haven’t gone back and compared it to past seasons and where guys numbers were heading into hometowns/overnights, but only 3 guys have over 100k followers this late in the season? Is that normal? Seems low no? All I hear is about how great all of Katie’s guys are and Clare/Tayshia’s guys were, but it doesn’t look like it’s translating much into followers. Then again, IG followers seems to be more about following the women in this franchise. If I’m not mistaken, of the 20 most followed contestants in this franchise, I wanna say 14 of them are women. Makes sense. IG is much more geared towards women than men. Still seems a bit low overall that only 3 guys have over 100k followers right now, but I don’t know, maybe that’s normal.
One complaint amongst fans season in and season out is why they spend so much time on drama and stupid storylines, and less time getting to know some of the contestants. As I’ve said with my podcast, everyone’s got a story. Some are more interesting than others, sure, but there’s still a story there. However, since it’s a TV show that only gets 80 minutes of footage a week, they have to focus on certain things that are more compelling TV. But what makes compelling TV is different for each individual viewer. Some people love the drama. Some want to see more. When Quartney got eliminated, you saw all the guys clapping for him. No one watching could really understand why. The other day, Quartney took to his IG live and explained:
Now we have our answer. The guy lost his mother to suicide a couple years ago. But it begs the question, why did we get so many episodes talking about Michael’s past and his wife’s story but not hear Quartney’s? Granted, it’s probably because Michael lasted longer, but still, I think it would’ve been interesting to hear Quartney’s backstory. It was ignored. So that’s the push & pull this franchise seems to struggle with. I think it would’ve went a long way if they showed Quartney telling his stories to castmates.
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