Rick and Morty: Adult Swim’s Season Six Premiere At Six Season Low

Adult Swim sent out this press release to announce the ratings “success” of Rick and Morty’s season six premiere, here’s what it said:

Sunday’s season six premiere episode of Rick and Morty on Adult Swim was a ratings hit, winning its timeslot across all basic cable. It was Sunday’s #1 most-watched telecast for women 18-24 and 18-34 and non-sports telecast for male viewers 18-24 and 18-34. 

Rick and Morty solidly commanded its 11:00 pm ET/PT timeslot, winning against key late-night cable competitors including Family Guy on FXX.

After season five’s climactic ending, the highly-anticipated season six premiere episode “Solaricks” follows Rick, Morty and the rest of the Smith family as they deal with the fallout.

First thing’s first, it should be noted the press release is touting the fact that it beat a rerun of Family Guy as a “win”. I mean, if Adult Swim hadn’t won the 11pm slot against a rerun I’d be a little more worried. But, there’s another little foot note that Adult Swim had failed to mention in it’s attempt at marketing a “ratings hit”.

The sixth season premiere of Rick and Morty also was the lowest-rated premiere episode of all-time for the franchise registering a .66 in the overnights. It used to be the season three episode entitled “The Rickshank Redemption” (.68) as the lowest-rated episode of Rick and Morty of all-time, however, THAT episode gets a slight pass due to the fact that it was a surprise premiere drop on April Fools Day 2017 on a Saturday night that typically is reserved for Toonami which is where most non-action toons go to die (see Final Space‘s final season). The .66 overnight rating for “Solaricks” is a 30% drop from the show’s fifth season finale and almost a full 1.0 drop whence compared to Rick and Morty’s season five premiere that just lost an Emmy last weekend.

It’s not just Rick and Morty, either. Tuca & Bertie, often seen as a clickbait darling of extreme woke press, has also seen a 50% decrease in ratings whence comparing the show’s second (.4) and third season premieres (.15), but at least THAT show can take some solace in the fact that it’s ratings tapered up near the show’s season three finale (.2).

We’ve been tracking Rick and Morty’s ratings decline for a couple of seasons now, and the show  been getting lower and lower each season but at least kicks off rather strong before tapering off, not the case here. Personally, I think the season six premiere was excellent, and there’s a lot for fans to be excited about. But, Adult Swim is almost abusing it’s fan base with the amount of Rick and Morty over-saturation the franchise takes part in and it may be having a negative influence on the once hardcore fan base. With HBO MAX’s recent abuse of the animation format, fans are threatening to unsubscribe in droves, and WB Discovery head David Zaslav is an old-school ratings honcho that wants to see results. From where I sit, I don’t think it’s a quality of content thing, I think it’s a corporate issue.

Rick and Morty season seven production is already well underway and the show’s eighth season is currently in pre-production, but has not been announced for an order just yet. Chances are if you’re wanting more seasons of Rick and Morty, you’re going to have to start watching it if you want more…unless you don’t. Do you?