A&E's breakout
pro-hunting hit "Duck Dynasty" returned Wednesday night to record
ratings. The season three premiere delivered 8.6 million viewers.
That's huge. It's not
only the most-watched "Duck Dynasty" episode ever, it's A&E's
most-watched telecast ever and ranks as cable's biggest reality show
telecast so far this year. The 10 p.m. episode (the first of two
back-to-back airings) was up 132 percent vs. the second season premiere.
Plus, a full 5 million of the viewers were in the adults 18-49 demo.
The return of "Duck
Dynasty" benefited from an unexpected gift-from-the-PR-gods when British
singer and animal rights activist Morrissey cancelled his planned Feb.
26 performance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" at the last minute in protest of
the "Duck Dynasty" stars appearing the same episode. Morrissey called
the show's stars — who own a family business that makes products for
hunters — "animal serial killers."
Kimmel later hit back during his show's Tuesday monologue:
"While I respect his stance on this, I really do, there's a very good
reason why I didn't dump the 'Duck Dynasty' guys for Morrissey. And
that's because they have guns." Kimmel also added of the famously
downbeat singer, "He keeps finding new ways to depress us." The host
aired a parody video for "a new "Duck Dynasty" product for vegans."
The pop singer then
countered that Kimmel "found time to jokingly promote gun-ownership —
hugely amusing for the parents at Sandy Hook, no doubt. He also promoted
his special guests "Duck Dynasty" -- who kill beings for fun. None of
the above issues are, of course, as important as Jimmy Kimmel himself,
who has finally revealed his show to have an overwhelming loss of
meaning. Tune in and relive the intellectual fog of the 1950s."
Kimmel followed that up
by tweeting yestrerday, "Note to Morrissey — if you have more dumb
statements to make, I invite you to make them where I do, on my show."
He included in the tweet a link to the cover art for Morrissey's 2004 album You Are the Quarry, which featured the singer wielding a machine gun.
The Christian-friendly A&E docu-series has been on a ratings tear since catching fire last year. One surprising survey
found that "Duck Dynasty" received more mentions on Facebook in 2012
than any other TV series, including social-network-friendly hits like
HBO's "Game of Thrones" and CBS' "The Big Bang Theory."
Collected from :http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/28/showbiz/tv/duck-dynasty-ratings-morrissey-protest-ew/?hpt=hp_bn9
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