Ellen Degeneres Has Lost a Million Viewers Since Being Exposed as a Tyrant Who Treats People Like Trash. You Hate to See It.
Source - When Ellen DeGeneres returned from a summer hiatus to open the 18th season of her daytime talk show in September, she came armed with an apology. “I learned that things happen here that never should have happened,” she said. “I take that very seriously. And I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected.” Those remarks came in the wake of reports of workplace misconduct at “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
Viewers tuned in for the apology: This year’s season opener had the highest ratings for an “Ellen” premiere in four years. And then they tuned out. “Ellen” has lost more than a million viewers since September, according to the research firm Nielsen, averaging 1.5 million viewers over the last six months, down from 2.6 million in the same period last year. ...
The show’s loss of more than a million viewers translates to a 43 percent decline, representing a steeper drop than any of its competitors. This TV season, “Ellen,” the winner of dozens of Emmys since its start in 2003, is no longer in the same league as traditional rivals like “Dr. Phil” (2.5 million) and “Live: With Kelly and Ryan” (2.7 million). Now it finds itself uncomfortably close to shows hosted by Maury Povich (1.4 million), Kelly Clarkson (1.3 million), Rachael Ray (1.2 million), Tamron Hall (1.1 million) and Jerry Springer’s former security guard Steve Wilkos (1.1 million).
Ouch, New York Times. The way you ended that last paragraph will leave a mark. Of all the words of tongue or pen, the cruelest are these: "Your ratings compare to Steve Wilkos." It has to be devastating to go from the absolute, sovereign ruler of Daytime TV to battling it out in the ratings with the guy who oversaw security for the Mother/Daughter Dominatrix team who rode a fat submissive in a bra and panties around like a horse. From winning dozens of Emmys to hovering around the same viewer numbers as the referee of the "Cold Hearted Convicts" bout. Try looking Hillary Duff in the eye when you're swimming with the guy who didn't see what was coming when they left a deli platter on stage in the "Sandwiched Between Two Sisters" episode.
These must be hard times indeed to be Ellen Degeneres. I mean, not as hard as being on Ellen's staff all these years, enduring her unholy reign of terror:
But difficult nonetheless.
Now to be clear, I'm as against Cancel Culture as anyone. If someone is a complete and irredeemable dick, I don't necessarily want them taken off the air. On the contrary, I want that person mic'd up at all times so we can keep track of them and study their behavior. The way researchers put tags on sharks. But this isn't Cancel Culture. It's something much purer: Economics. This ratings drop of Ellen's isn't Wokeness, it's Adam Smith. Supply and Demand. Laissez faire. It's a million people a day saying they've got better ways to spend an hour of their day than watching someone pretend to be Ms. Nice Host. To fake being pleasant to those around them and deliver insincere messages of spreading kindness while carefully building a toxic work environment once the cameras are off.
She's been branding her own niceness and selling it as a commodity. And it's worked. It's made her hundreds of millions. But the problem with that strategy is that you have to be able to walk the walk. The reason Fred Rogers remains a beloved icon to this day and is having documentaries and feature films made about him is because he was that man he portrayed on screen. If we found out that when he was done taking kids to the Land of Make Believe he was berating the boom operator for casting a shadow on his face or demanding no one make eye contact with him, he'd be a punchline. Instead, he's an inspirational figure who can make grown men cry years after he left us. Ellen couldn't keep up the facade, and it's costing her. No one's forcing it. No group is demanding advertisers boycott her show. It's just that the public has spoken. And that is a pure good. The marketplace is correcting itself.
Let this be a lesson to us all. You can be a colossally high maintenance diva. But only if you're good enough to earn it. How big a pain in the ass you are has to be in direct proportion to how talented you are. And that goes for all walks of life, but show business in particular. Just keeping this to talk show hosts, if you told me Letterman at his peak was terrible to work for, it wouldn't surprise me. But not only was he great enough to earn it, being a dink was part of his persona. Subsequently if you said Oprah ran a tight ship, no one would have an issue with that because she was the ratings queen of the medium for decades. She could do what she wanted. I grew up on Johnny Carson. I'm sure he was cold and distant to his staff. But he was the undisputed GOAT, so the aloofness worked for him. Ellen has never been good enough to have the luxury of stepping all over people. And now all her behaviors being exposed the way they are is driving the viewers away and costing her millions. Couldn't happen to a nicer fraud.
