MTV's The Real World's Ratings Drop Over 50% This Season

I thought this season wasn't so bad?!

Long-running MTV reality franchise "The Real World" may finally be showing signs of age.

Skein's 18th edition, "The Real World: Denver," premiered to lackluster numbers in its new Wednesdays-at-10 timeslot.

MTV ran the premiere episode at 8, 9 and 10 pm on Nov. 22. In its regular 10 pm timeslot, the epsiode pulled 1.56 million total viewers, while the cumulative total for the three airings was 4.33 million overall viewers.

Numbers also fell by half in MTV's target 12-24 and 12-34 demographics. In the key 12-24 category, premiere was down to 965,000 viewers from the 1.87 million who tuned in for the first seg of "Key West."

MTV touted results for a pair of one-hour preview specials that ran at 8 and 9 leading up to the premiere. Those drew 1.18 million and 1.59 million viewers, respectively.

Channel was also happy with traffic to its Web site. MTV.com drew 223,000 streams in the 24-hour period following the premiere.

** CORRECTION: There was an MTV Press Release earlier this week stating that the COMBINED viewing numbers for the Real World Denver Premiere over the triad of shows shown at 8, 9, & 10pm on Wednesday November 22nd was over 8.5 million. This is up nearly a third from last season’s Real World Key West one show premiere.

Variety countered today that the 10pm showing only pulled in 1.56 million and the 3 combined garnered 4.33 million total which would be less than the Key West Real World premiere of approximately 6 million. Approximately 4 million watched the premiere of the Real World San Diego & the Real World Austin. Followed by 3.3 million viewers for the initial episode of the Real World Philadelphia.

I spoke with MTV directly about this and they provided me this statement (courtesy of MTV) and Variety is now running a correction:

With regard to Variety’s story:
By giving the MTV audience three different viewing destinations, 8p, 9p and 10p, it would be inaccurate to compare any individual airing on 11/22 to previous season premieres. Variety understands this and is running a correction in tomorrow’s paper.


*** Thanks Michael! =) Someone rep'n the Real World cast lookin' at POTP? Hawt.

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