Red Letter Media Claims Source Told Them Less than 40,000 People Watched Starfleet Academy Per Episode
The fallout from the embarrassment of Starfleet Academy continues, as now Mike from Red Letter Media claims that less than 40,000 people watched Starfleet Academy per episode in a new episode of re:View.
Starfleet Academy had notoriously low ratings, failing to chart in Nielsen’s top 10 overall and also failing many weeks even to make the top 10 inside the Paramount Plus app. Despite Paramount releasing the first episode of the show on YouTube for free to get people to attempt to check it out, the gambit didn’t work, and the show was pronounced canceled after its first season, even though the second season had already been filmed and was in post-production.
The actors for the show have been doing a press tour, lashing out at fans and playing victim over the last week. The heat from fans became so bad, Robert Picardo announced he would be taking a break from X, saying, “Still blocking the rude, crude, hateful and stupefyingly stupid which are never in short supply here. [And, of course, all of the bots] It's a full-time job and I need a break. See you soon! - - I am confident that you will keep the hate-fires burning while I'm gone !”
Despite announcing this, he kept posting about Trump angrily every single day since then, but he stopped mentioning the Starfleet Academy show in which he starred as the emergency medical hologram.
Meanwhile, on Red Letter Media’s new re:View episode, where they talk about the first season of Star Trek: Voyager, Mike reveals he has an insider talking about the ratings for the show after Rich announced, “Star Trek is dead.”
Mike replied, "I heard from my source. Do you want to know the numbers? The entire first season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, not individual episodes, the entire season total views, about 400,000. Not per episode. Cumulatively, the entire series. About 400,000 views. Which is an average of maybe 40,000 views per episode."
If this is true, the level of viewership is even lower than people could have possibly thought. Those levels are completely dismal, especially as the show is rumored to have had a budget of anywhere from $10-20 million per episode. Even on the low end of teh curve, it would have cost Paramount nearly $2,500 per viewer, something subscriptions could never recoup.
It’s no wonder they announced the cancellation before the second season even airs, completely writing off this show, as most fans have.
What do you think about this viewership numbers rumor?
Survival of the fittest just became a lot more dangerous. Space Fleet Academy Year Two delivers the hard sci-fi action Paramount refused to give you with Starfleet Academy. That’s why we’re still here while the show is gone. Read it today!
I suspect that the first episode had +/-250,000 views and then the numbers dwindled to about 1000 for the final episode.
Paramount needs to Batgirl season 2 immediately. Halt all post production work and marketing. Seal the tapes in a salt mine and write it off.
First, my understanding is that there is a larger tax write off if it never airs. Second, releasing season 2 will only have negative consequences: further brand damage, endless and deserved ridicule, and entitled garbage actors who won't ever shut up insulting and getting into social media rock fights and flame wars with the few fans still dedicated enough to care.