After hitting a series low last week, Lena Dunham’s “Girls” hit yet another series low again Sunday in the all-important 18-49 youth demo (total viewers hasn’t yet been released). Incredibly, only 385,000 tuned in. That’s a catastrophic 0.17 rating, down from last week’s already catastrophic 0.21 when just 406,000 demo viewers tuned in.
Last week, Dunham supporters appeared to want to blame the competition of the Grammy Awards. This week it’s the “Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that throughout the Sunday night, four season run of “Girls,” competing networks have and will continue to put programs on they hope will be popular.
Throughout all of season three, the lowest Sunday night demo rating was 0.34, which is double this Sunday’s 0.17.
How is this for a comparison: Against no less than the Academy Awards last year, “Girls” still managed 0.45 demo rating.
It does appears as though, despite the biggest publicity push “Girls” has ever enjoyed, Dunham is losing what was an already small but fiercely loyal fan-base.
Nothing is more fatal to a popular personality than doing something that negatively and forever alters the way your fans perceive you. Over the past year, Dunham self-destructed her own credibility repeatedly by stepping on the scandal third rail of Lies/Children/Hypocrisy. That kind of behavior goes beyond politics and culture.
How bad is a 0.17 demo rating? Ad nauseum in the New York Times and incessantly on every magazine cover in America, Lena Dunham has been sold, processed, packaged and pitched for years as the Voice of Her Generation. And yet, last week, The Voice of Her Generation likely pulled in fewer viewers from her generation than 53 year-old Sean Hannity and definitely fewer than 65 year-old Bill O’Reilly.
As of today, the science proves that Fox News is closer than Dunham to being the voice of Dunham’s generation.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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