I’ve never quite grasped the appeal of the BACHELOR-verse, THE BACHELORETTE in particular. I’m clearly not in the sweet spot of their target audience, the reality-obsessed female 18-49 who was ostensibly being appealed to at the outset with the promise of turning the tables on the male fantasy that the original iteration of the series offered–25 attractive women throwing themselves at the feet–and occasionally some higher-up body parts–of some smug lucky dude. In the version where the woman was the pursuer and not the pursued, it in theory was to appeal to the wish that many a Disney princess heard while watching SNOW WHITE as a child–“Someday my prince will come”. When it became obvious to me that that phrase was far more applicable to a premature reaction in a hot tub, I lost any interest I might have otherwise had.
But I’m still a student of ratings and reality television as a whole, so I can least grasp what somehow went through the minds of the ABC executives who were about to tee up a season–the first after a 19-month hiatus that followed an executive housecleaning–that was about to employ that good old fashioned Disney synergy into reinvigorating a franchise that has lost more than 85 per cent of its initial season’s total audience and which had fallen even below a rounded 1.0 rating in adults 18-49. Even allowing for the overall decline of linear television this century, those kinds of precipitous losses were alarmingly outsized. As THE NEW YORK TIMES’ dynamic duo of Julia Jacobs and John Koblin explained yesterday, they were about to cross-breed with a lead far more familiar to an audience not likely already watching the show:
Taylor Frankie Paul, a reality star who was to lead the new season slated to premiere on Sunday…rose to fame in the reality series “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”(.)… Ms. Paul, 31, first gained public prominence in 2022 when, as a TikTok influencer and mother of two, she announced in a livestream that she and her husband had decided to divorce after “soft swinging” with other Mormon couples in their Salt Lake City-area friend group. “Mormon Wives” premiered the next year, following Ms. Paul and the other members of the group of women who called themselves MomTok.
OK, so not exactly the Virgin Mary holding out for marriage. We can live with that. But then there was this:
Paul… been under scrutiny in recent days after it emerged that she was facing a domestic violence investigation, years after pleading guilty to aggravated assault in a separate encounter… (O)n Thursday, TMZ published leaked footage of a physical altercation from 2023 in which Ms. Paul, who rose to fame in the reality series “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” is shown putting her partner in a headlock and throwing metal chairs at him.
(P)olice in Draper, Utah, confirmed this week that there is an ongoing domestic violence investigation related to Ms. Paul and the man seen in the video, Dakota Mortensen, who is now her ex-boyfriend. Police said that the encounter occurred after Ms. Paul had wrapped filming for “The Bachelorette,” but during production for the upcoming season of “Mormon Wives,” which has since been paused.
And that’s why your alerts were likely as cluttered as mine yesterday when THE WRAPs equally dynamic duo of Loree Seitz and Tess Patton dropped this dime–well, half-dollar:
Disney said today that it had pulled “The Bachelorette…The abrupt cancellation marked an unprecedented move for “The Bachelor” franchise, which was already plagued with scandal after scandal in recent years. The outlook for its female-led spinoff seemed sunny after ABC announced that Paul would take the lead for the 22nd season, with hopes that the stunt casting would revive the series.
Jacobs and Koblin named a few more names and provided a few more details:
Once the video was published, the executives — including Debra OConnell, the chair of Disney Entertainment Television; Craig Erwich, the TV president; and Rob Mills, the executive for unscripted programming — quickly concluded that going forward with the season would be untenable…Television executives were aware that Ms. Paul had been charged with domestic violence when they cast her. The first episode of “Mormon Wives” included police body camera footage of that arrest. Producers of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” have faced past criticism for failing to properly vet contestants.
And considering O’Connell, the former station executive, was officially elevated into her new position barely a week ago, one would have to conclude that czarina of content Dana Walden was one of those executives who was aware of exactly what kind of live grenade they were playing with. Not to mention those at program supplier Warner Horizon, who unsurprisingly were unavailable for comment to any of the journos seeking insight. They’re probably preoccupied with job searches at the moment, so it sure looks like this was the right week to try and slip this under the radar had it not been for those heathens at TMZ (at one time, of course, a Warner property).
So to all of these ostriches and cowards I have a couple of pointed questions. What drove you to your decision to think a woman named after fish sticks would somehow save this sinking ship?
If it was the perception that SECRET LIVES is a hit, well, maybe what’s left of your research team interpreted your numbers a bit different than I do. Let’s do a little media math, shall we? In October 2024, just after when the most recent season of THE BACHELORETTE had ended and when SECRET LIVES dropped, DEADLINE’s Katie Campione was goaded into pushing out these plaudits:
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives saw a 78% increase in viewership with 729M viewing minutes in its first full week on Hulu, which was good enough for sixth place overall and No. 3 among originals. Nielsen says female viewers made up 77% of the audience. It’s no wonder why Hulu renewed the reality series for 20 more episodes.
At the same time, Season 21 of THE BACHELORETTE concluded with 2.88 million viewers, which translated to a 0.36 demo rating. To the undereducated eye, 729 looks a lot bigger than 2.8. But the dirty little secret of streaming is that by reporting viewership in digital-friendly metrics everything appears larger than they otherwise are in a rearview mirror. THE BACHELORETTE aired ten two-hour episodes in the summer of 2024, giving them a potential viewership of 1200 minutes. Let’s conservatively say the average viewer watched a third of each episode, which is the sort of average length of tune-in I saw in the franchise when I was examining it under a microscope while comparing SHARK TANK to it. That factors in the reality that many viewers don’t watch certain episodes at all and some never make it through an entire episode. Do the math. That equates to 1.152 billion minutes–58% more SECRET WIVES had scored.
Will someboy please tell me how a show that had that much more traction was considered enough of a disaster to require an overhaul and the show with the lesser numbers was practically saving Hulu from obsolence?
And before any of the Natalie Jarvey demo gets on me for not factoring in the Tik Tok angle, even she will concede that the shortform audience doesn’t necessarily translate to longform viewing. Even the successful grafting of two of Paul’s co-stars onto last season’s DWTS uptick was only part of the story, which we mused appreciatively about at the time.
Moreover, as the ever-astute Josef Adalian of VULTURE noted in his post-mortem piece from last night, there is a distinct difference between what sort of appeal a personality like Paul brings to something like WIVES and what she purportedly was to bring to THE BACHELORETTE:
Industry insiders we spoke to in the wake of ABC’s sudden yanking of The Bachelorette expressed disbelief that it got to this point, given the network and the show’s producers at Warner Bros. TV have been so intent on trying to clean up the franchise’s very messy recent history and the fact that they knew Paul had a complicated past. “Not sure I remember one like this,” a longtime TV-industry veteran told me, adding that pulling the show was “a pretty easy choice,” given the circumstances. “That being said, where was Disney legal on this? She had a pretty public track record.” One veteran reality-TV producer told me that the Paul mess (including this week’s investigation) “might fly on a Housewives show, but the optics for a romantic dating show are different.” This producer also expressed shock that this got past Disney vetting. “This is a huge misstep for Taylor Frankie Paul for not disclosing the existence of the video, and it makes ABC look like they have the legal reach and depth of WE or E!,” the producer added.
I’ll add this as well: stripping away the mechanics, the optics and literal titillation, THE BACHELOR(ETTE) is a competition reality show, where the ultimate goal is closure and finding a seasonal winner. Out of the 21 couples that came together in the series’ previous seasons, only four still remain together (three married, one at least on track to do so). And with respective gaps of ten and seven years between number two and number three and number three and number four. Not exactly an admirable track record, even by the nominal standards of today’s marriages.
The noise since this all came down has been surrounding how much all of the parties involved are attempting to save face. This morning PEOPLE’s dynamic duo (does anyone besides Adalian work solo in this sector any more?) of Brendon Blanchet and Sean Mandell shared this sermon from the mount:
A spokesperson for Paul says in a statement obtained by PEOPLE, “Taylor is very grateful for ABC’s support as she prioritizes her family’s safety and security. After years of silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse as well as threats of retaliation, Taylor is finally gaining the strength to face her accuser and taking steps to ensure that she and her children are protected from any further harm.”
And Campione combined with her DEADLINE colleague Peter White (see what I mean?!?!) to add this:
Paul’s spokesperson blamed Mortenson for the video leak in a statement to press. “It’s sad to see the latest installment of his never-ending, desperate, attention-seeking, destructive campaign to harm Taylor without any regard for the consequences for their child. Releasing an old video, which conveniently omits context, on their son’s birthday is a reprehensible attempt to distract from his own behavior. Thankfully, the public has seen this act before and knows who he is and sadly, many will recognize this pattern of manipulation, both in his actions on the show, and from their own experiences.”
Sure sounds like good fodder for SECRET WIVES, especially for the lower bar that Hulu seems to live by. But as for THE BACHELORETTE, leave it to Adalian to put to rest the balance of the whining about all of the money and the reputations that are providing other clickbait today:
In the short term, insiders we spoke to think this isn’t quite as big a deal as it seems in terms of its impact on ABC’s bottom line…. “They will be fine,” one longtime TV executive told me. For now, this person said, the network can “just air repeats” on Sunday — and indeed, ABC is doing exactly that, with an encore of American Idol now airing in place of Bachelorette. And if this season is scrapped for good (that decision has not been made yet, as the vagueness of Disney’s statement makes clear), the company can easily “write off cost of show,” this person added.
While it would not at all be surprising if this season of Bachelorette never saw the light of day, the fact that ABC used the words “pause” and “for now” clearly indicates no final decision has been made. Yet Disney probably has a very strong incentive to cut its losses and move on. It did exactly that in 2005, when ABC pulled controversial reality show Welcome to the Neighborhood from its lineup less than two weeks before its planned (and well promoted) premiere. In 2010, Fox waited until just a few days before the launch of Mark Burnett show Our Little Genius to yank the series from its lineup over questions about the integrity of the production.
Citing precedences like that should quell some of the other sturm and drang, and might hopefully spare any of the executives who willingly ignored these warning signs and reality checks the ignominy of being sacrificial lambs in this dumpster fire. I personally see no good reason why perpetuating the toxic relationship between network and supplier is any more grounded in logic and reason than why Paul and Mortensen should continue to have booty calls–or, for that matter, any more of our valuable time and attention.
Believe me, even another cycle of THE $100,000 PYRAMID is capable of garnering 700 million viewing minutes, with a lot less tsurris to boot. Unless, of course, they choose to use this heretofore unaired footage to promote it:
Until next time…