Question of the week: are people stupid?

Mike and Molly

Ratings are a bit of a blunt tool but normally they can be quite useful. I find that in a large majority of cases, the shows I do like other people like, too, and they go on to survive for a few seasons, while the shows I spot as turkeys from the outset generally last a season at most thanks to other people agreeing with me.

But there are exceptions, usually on US network CBS, but also elsewhere. I thought Rubicon got really good towards the end, but it has just been cancelled (although I don’t blame AMC or the audience since you had to have a hell of a lot of viewing stamina to reach the end, after a really slow start by the show) and there are shows that mysteriously do well, such as Rules of Engagement , for reasons I can’t fathom.

Case in point: Mike and Molly and Community. Now, Mike and Molly is a heinously bad show, a cornucopia of fat-jokes, bad acting and general nastiness from the producers of Two and a Half Men. Ugh. Community is, of course, a brilliantly funny comedy, filled with pop culture references, sight gags, interesting characters, entertaining situations and actual hilarity. Yet what are the two shows’ ratings? On Monday, Mike and Molly got 12.3 million viewers, a growth of 9% on the previous week; on Thursday, Community gets about 4.8 million viewers.

Now obviously, days of the week get different ratings, they’re in different time slots, with different lead-in shows, Community is on NBC, the virtual home of low ratings, while Mike and Molly is on number one network CBS. But all the same, this isn’t an isolated problem. We all know low-rated but good shows and high-rated but rubbish shows from both sides of the Atlantic (and elsewhere). So I have to ask:

Are people stupid? Is the ratio of stupid people to non-stupid people in this world 12.3:4.8 or 2.6:1? And is there any way to fix this, given that low ratings will lead to death for the smarter shows, while high ratings will ensure dumb shows survive?

As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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