10 TV Shows That Lost MILLIONS Of Viewers (And Why)
This lot had it all, but they just couldn't hold onto it...
Television is just about as fickle an industry as you could possibly find, as the landscape is littered with TV shows all scrambling to make a good impression on any potential viewer that might stumble upon them.
Ratings are as important to the TV world as box office receipts are to the film industry, because it's your viewership that ultimately guarantees their success. After all, if nobody's watching, then there's not much point in commissioning another season now, is there?
Over the years, we've seen some titans of television make an unforgettable impact on those watching at home, garnering viewers in their droves as they do their thing... and sometimes, those viewers even rise as the respective show carries on. Then you have the other side of the coin. Y'know, the one where a show is so darn popular that it ends up making a few missteps along the way and actually loses viewers?
With that in mind, let's take a look back at some of the biggest shows in recent television history and figure out how they ended up losing millions of viewers as they attempted to do what they do best: Entertain us.
10. Supergirl
We may talk about how Arrow started this wave of modern day superhero TV, while The Flash took it to a whole new level, but no single episode of the Arrowverse has been more watched than the pilot of Supergirl - which brought in a staggering 13 million viewers. Though those viewers decreased over the course of the first season, it did bring in an impressive average of 9.8 million throughout its run. Nowadays, however, the show is in its fifth season and it's barely watched by 1 million a week.
That said, Supergirl's dramatic decline can easily be explained away by the show's move from CBS to sister network The CW following the conclusion of its first season. While that did allow it to continue on - officially bringing the Girl of Steel to the home of the Arrowverse - it also robbed the show of a massive chunk of its viewership as The CW brings in considerably less viewers than any of the other 'Big 5' networks.
Of course, as with every show, the typical fatigue/viewer decline has set in over time, but the 3 million drop between Seasons 2 and 5 is actually pretty standard for The CW and doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as the 12-million difference between the first and fifth seasons.