Bachelorette star Brooke Blurton has spoken out on the show’s dismal ratings, and offered up her thoughts on what it might take for the franchise to pull in more viewers.
The show was once a ratings juggernaut, with 1.186 million viewers tuning in to see the finale of the first season, where Tim Robards walked away with Anna Heinrich.
However, only 629,000 tuned in for Jimmy Nicholson’s season nine finale, where he chose Holly Kingston, and only 439,000 watched Brooke fall in love with Darvid Garayeli.
Speaking to Daily Mail, Brooke said that while people still love the show, audiences want to see more wholesome stories instead of drama.
“I came in to amp it up, but I think it still as a lot of room to grow,” she said.
“Obviously there was a time where it was a little bit outdated, but I think they need to start incorporating more wholesome, intellectual, conversations and people will resonate with that,” Brooke explained.
“The US one is still very successful – I think people really do love the franchise.
“The format originally, how it started … hopefully it still stays to the core of finding love, and less drama.”
She also called out the show’s lack of diversity, given Brooke was the first Bachelorette who was bisexual and Indigenous, which proved to be a major shakeup for the show.
“They should be more diverse, show more normal people. We’ve had a woman of colour, bisexual … maybe changing it up and having someone who maybe identifies different, maybe they/them, maybe someone who has a disability,” she suggested.
The existing format also makes the finalists on the season quite obvious, with the well-worn ‘wife’ edit pointing out the more wholesome women, who often make it to the top three or four.
Sportsbet has also been accurately predicting the winner for some years now, taking some of the suspense away from the finale.
While Brooke and Darvid split just a few months after filming ended, the two most-recent Bachelors remain happily loved up with their chosen partners from the show.
Jimmy Nicholson and Holly Kingston are living together in Bondi, and have admitted that an engagement is ‘on the horizon’.
The 2020 Bachelor, Locky Gilbert, is also still with his winner Irena Srbinovska, with the pair living together in Perth.
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