The FX Network series Atlanta has already been preordained for a final season in its fourth ovation, giving viewers another year of entertaining content. Yet, the third season of Donald Glover’s masterpiece that brought us viral-worthy episodes, such as “Teddy Perkins” and “B.A.N.,” is showing a significant drop-off in viewership.
The latest season launched on March 24, 2022 with the premiere receiving 0.31 million viewers in the 18-49 demographics, a 63.6% decrease from the previous season’s premiere, according to The Nielsen Company, which included all live and same day viewing, along with DVR playback for its final national ratings. Still, that would be the highest viewership in the entire third season.
The following episode dropped to 0.288 million viewers, with a slide in viewership continuing until episode 5, “Cancer Attack,” a “whodunit” adventure that places Earn, Darius, and Al on a mission to find a stolen iPhone with one of the suspects being a pediatric cancer patient, where 0.29 million viewers tuned in. The series would see it’s season low with episode seven, “Trini 2 De Bone,” at 0.152 million viewers. The disappointing dip was followed by a victorious high of 0.305 million viewers on the eighth episode, “New Jazz,” airing May 5.
However, the curse of the dip returned for episode nine, even with the controversial, self-proclaimed relationship guru Kevin Samuels starring as Robert S. Lee on the “Rich Wigga Poor Wigga” episode. Viewership declined by 26.2% at 0.225 million viewers, followed by a 32.4% decrease for the tenth and final episode. The season finale aired on May 19 with 0.152 million viewers, according to Nielsen. However, other sources report 0.25 million viewers, a decline of over 60% from the second season’s finale.
For comparison, the second season ranged from a minimum viewership of 0.487 million to a maximum of 0.851 million (season two premiere). The average viewership was 0.639 million over season two, while season three only received an average of 0.247 million viewers.
There were many factors at play that prevented the Primetime Emmy-winning series from reaching its full potential when it comes to viewership. First, the huge series hiatus of nearly four years gave viewers too much time to find replacements, such as the Power Universe, Ozark, and all those Black love as depicted by four girlfriends shows. Second, the series was challenging to follow given that the episodes contained standalone storylines that didn’t necessarily provide the continuity viewers were hoping for.
Third, there’s the complication of ever-evolving technology that has isolated access to a variety of series and changed consumer habits. Now, viewers prefer content on streaming services and they want the episodes all at once, so they can binge watch at their convenience. Lastly, Atlanta initially targeted certain demographics, such as Black people, males, the hip hop community, the city of Atlanta and other metropolitans like it, and so forth. But as the seasons passed, so did the tone of the show. Online commentary seems to not be feeling the European tour concept.
As it stands, Atlanta has an audience score of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, while many diehard fans are regretful of the series coming to an end. With a spectacular cast of new Hollywood, starring big-timers LaKeith Stanfield, Brian Tyree Henry, and Zazie Beetz, Atlanta is one of the most innovative series of its time. With that said, we’ll be tuning in to the fourth season.
Episodes of Atlanta can be streamed on Hulu.
