'The Conners' Premiere Ratings Way Down From 'Roseanne' Premiere

Nick Kangadis | October 17, 2018

The overnight results are in for the “Roseanne” spinoff series “The Conners,” and it looks like ABC didn’t get the outcome they were looking for.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The Conners” garnered a “7.5 rating/12 share, off about 35 percent from the 11.6/19” for the return premiere episode of “Roseanne,” which aired in March.

It's also a bad indication that the return of “Roseanne” saw 18.44 million people watch the season premiere, while “The Conners” are projected to end up with 11 million viewers.

It looks like “The Conners” needs its matriarch.

If you recall, the reason for “The Conners” even existing as a show was because Roseanne Barr, who the original show was named for and based off of, was immediately fired after sending a questionably racist tweet about former senior advisor to then-president Obama, Valerie Jarrett.

Reportedly, two senior executives at ABC were worried about the reincarnation of the “Roseanne” series, because they intimated that they may have rushed to a decision with the move of firing Barr from her own show.

“We didn’t think it through properly,” one “insider” said, according to the Daily Mail. “What Roseanne did was wrong but we shouldn’t have rushed to fire her. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction by [President of Disney-ABC Television Group] Ben [Sherwood] and [President of ABC Entertainment Group] Channing [Dungey] who should have launched an investigation.”

Yeah. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to jump to the conclusion of immediately firing the person for whom the show is famous for.

Despite being exiled from her own show, Barr tweeted twice. The first tweet saw Barr make a pretty strong proclamation, while the second included a Facebook link to a statement from Barr and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

"While we wish the very best for the cast and production crew of The Conners, all of whom are deeply dedicated to their craft and were Roseanne’s cherished colleagues, we regret that ABC chose to cancel Roseanne by killing off the Roseanne Conner character," the statement read. "That it was done through an opioid overdose lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show."

Here's the first tweet from Barr:

RoseanneTweet

 

A 35 percent drop in ratings doesn’t bode well for the future of “The Conners,” because the episode of a season that are typically the highest rated is the season premiere and the season finale. It should be interesting to see how much of a decline the middle episodes will see.

The Daily Mail also reported more comments that their ABC "sources" told them:

They could've suspended her from the first few episodes without pay and had her return later on in the season. I mean the season finale saw Roseanne going to the hospital for knee surgery[…]

The morning the racist tweet scandal blew up, Roseanne offered to publicly apologize and do the rounds of every show but Ben and Channing weren't having any of that and wanted her gone. Why not have her front a PSA for the network on racism and cyber bullying?

Well, it’s a little late for all that now. Barr is gone from the show, and it looks like a bumpy road for the remaining members of “The Conners.”