Can ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ survive all these scandals?
There’s a saying that all publicity is good publicity. Even if the thing circulating about you is bad, you’re still going to gain attention and even some fans. Over the years we’ve seen plenty of proof of this – just look at Logan and Jake Paul. However, there appears to be a cap on how long bad publicity can serve you well – eventually it’s just too much.
Ellen DeGeneres has been getting hit with an onslaught of bad publicity since October of last year, and it seems her show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, is starting to bear the brunt of the effects. Since late May into June people began to notice for the first time anyone can recall DeGeneres’s show was declining in ratings.
What was happening back then?
In June we talked about how The Ellen DeGeneres Show was starting to lose viewers. Back then she had already dropped 14% of her viewership – terrifying for the powerhouse show which has had a run of 17 seasons and has been a frequent topper of the daytime TV charts.
DeGeneres usually pulls a 2.0 rating for her talk show, but had dropped to a 1.5 in June. It may not sound devastating, but that’s a notable slip-up which she doesn’t seem to have rebounded from yet.
While one may want to blame the bad ratings on the fact she’s been working from home to make the show happen, (which means less glitz, glamor, and Hollywood star power) but this doesn’t seem to be the case. DeGeneres started filming from home in March, and the ratings didn’t begin tanking until a few months later.
What’s happening now?
It’s now mid-July and instead of bouncing back up to her normal audience numbers, The Ellen DeGeneres Show appears to be continuing to hemorrhage viewership. The show almost bottomed out the daytime talk show boards – only being technically saved from the bottom because it tied with the show Maury. Ouch.
The show has sunk another 8% and found itself with a 1.1 rating – a far cry from the 2.0 rating the show had come to take for granted.
The sting probably hurts even worse when they realized Dr. Phil and Live with Kelly and Ryan both beat out new episodes of DeGeneres’s show with reruns last week. If the show continues to decline it wouldn’t surprise anyone to hear NBC cut their contract with DeGeneres short and then pull her off the air.
All the scandals
DeGeneres has been hit with accusation after accusation. The first thing which angered some people was that Ellen DeGeneres seemed to be friends with former president George W. Bush. This only angered certain people though, and DeGeneres took the moment to continue to push her “always be kind” agenda.
Then everyone from famous people, staff, and random fans who encountered her in the wild began to tell stories of how “Ellen the Generous” was actually “The Queen of Mean”. The stories haven’t stopped coming forward, and even earlier today more ex-employees of The Ellen DeGeneres Show have stepped forward to describe racist goings-on behind the scenes of the show.
It just seems to be one thing after another for Ellen DeGeneres these days – while a lot of these things are small and could be swept under the rug if they stood alone, some of these are too big to ignore, and all of these things piled together appear to be becoming too much for her image to handle. Even longtime die-hard fans are starting to dislike DeGeneres. Her show may be looking at its final days if the ratings don’t improve.
