While the media fawned over Hillary Clinton's appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on Monday, apparently viewers had other television watching plans: the show was beaten in the ratings by the season 6 premiere of "Teen Mom" as well as by a repeat of an episode of "Friends."
For a point of reference, "Friends" ended its run in May of 2004, when this author was in the seventh grade.
"Kimmel" garnered only an 0.4 rating, whereas the newest episode of Teen Mom, where viewers saw Maci Bookout get engaged to her longtime boyfriend Taylor and find out she's pregnant with her third child, got a 0.7 rating.
According to The Hill, Republican nominee Donald Trump's appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" got a 0.6 rating, or about a 30 percent more viewers.
But don't worry guys, Hillary Clinton opened a jar of pickles on Kimmel, so everything is fine.
While it's amusing that more people want to tune in to see a television show that's at least 12 years old (or, alternatively, watch a reality show featuring a collection of people who are essentially famous for being famous), this likely speaks to the sense of election fatigue the American public is experiencing. This has been a very long election, and neither candidate has very high favorability ratings. It's hard to blame people for wanting to watch something funny/relatively mindless instead.