Nolte: Media Elite’s Beloved HBO Show ‘Succession’ Draws a Measly 2.3 Million Viewers

The Sunday night season-four premiere of HBO’s Succession drew only 2.3 million viewers.

Oh, and that is not just the total number of viewers across cable and HBO’s streaming platforms; it’s an all-time high for this particular series.

Yes, it will pick up more viewers as it streams, but still…

Yikes.

The Wall Street Journal reported Succession’s season-four viewer numbers in light of the show’s previous season:

HBO’s premiere of the fourth and final season of “Succession” on Sunday night drew 2.3 million viewers across TV and streaming platforms, a new series high, the network said.

Viewer numbers for Sunday’s opening episode were the most ever for “Succession,” surpassing the 1.7 million viewers who watched the season three finale in 2021. It was also 62% higher than that season’s premiere.

Now, while I find it overrated by critics and the Hollywood media, I happen to like Succession. The first three seasons were enjoyable time-fillers. I canceled my HBO subscription a while back, so I might never see the fourth and final season. That’s something I can live with. The Golden Era of The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Shield, Justified, The Wire, The Americans, and Breaking Bad is over. Succession is fine, but it doesn’t touch those classics.

If you pay attention to the corporate media, the entertainment press, and the Twitter elite, you would think Succession is some sort of ratings juggernaut. Everyone who’s anyone is talking about Succession! But…

Fewer than one percent of the American people are actually watching the show.

This is how out-of-touch America’s stupid “tastemakers” are.

You can see why America’s elite would enjoy the show. It’s all about them and their obsessions with wealth, status, sex, conspicuous consumption, greed, backstabbing, politics, the media, and corporate power.

What I find most fascinating about this pathetic 2.3 million number is how it proves one vital thing: no one listens to the media elite anymore. There was a time when the kind of obsessive coverage we see around Succession could have at least boosted the ratings to something less laughable. Those days are long over.

Yes, that 2.3 million number is another piece of evidence on the growing pile that proves our media elite have lost the thing that was most important to them: the ability to sway and influence public opinion. We don’t trust them; we don’t like them; we hold them only in contempt. My guess is that when the Morning Joe/View/CNN crowd gushes over something like Succession, it actually hurts the show’s ratings. No one wants anything to do with the media elite anymore. If the elite enjoy something, it must be awful or insulting, or full of gay sex.

Well, Succession isn’t awful or insulting or full of gay sex. It’s pretty good. But the elite are doing it no favors. Like an Oscar nomination, their imprimatur has become the touch of death.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.