Last week, Kylie Jenner’s reality show – the somewhat unimaginatively titled Life of Kylie – premiered on E! following months of fanfare.
For execs at the network that made the Kardashians famous, the show must have seemed a guaranteed hit.
After all, by some measures, Kylie is now the most popular Kardashian.
She has an astonishing 96.7 million Instagram followers, and at the ripe old age of 20, Kylie might soon become a billionaire on the strength of her wildly popular line of cosmetics.
But as network chiefs and film producers have learned time and again, internet popularity doesn’t always translate to other media, and what’s huge online can land elsewhere on the cultural landscape with a resounding thud.
That seems to be the case for Kylie, whose series is officially a dud after two consecutive weeks of lackluster ratings.
The show is averaging a scant 1.1 million viewers, just slightly more than half as many viewers as Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna’s spinoff pulled in last year.
Not a good sign, as Rob & Chyna was canceled after just one season.
(Though, to be fair, there were several factors involved in that decision.)
There are several reasons why Kylie’s show might be having such difficulty finding an audience.
The Kardashians ratings have been on the decline for years, perhaps a natural consequence of the family being a ubiquitous presence across all media platforms for the past decade.
On top of that, Kylie is the queen of social media, a mixed blessing when it comes to attracting a TV audience.
We know that millions are interested in the life of Kylie, but because she shares so much of her life on Instagram and Snapchat, there’s little need to tune into Life of Kylie.
And of course, it doesn’t help that Kylie is up against HBO’s ratings juggernaut, Game of Thrones.
But apparently, Kylie has no interest in the many likely explanations for why her show may not be long for this world.
According to Radar Online, the Kylie is doing a lot of finger-pointing these days, and she’s placing much of the blame squarely on her mother and manager, Kris Jenner.
“Kylie is not taking this very well and she is putting the blame on everyone but herself,” a source close to the situation tells Radar.
“She is blaming Kris for focusing more on Kim’s makeup launch than on her reality show and she is telling everyone in the family that it is not her fault that people are not interested in her show,” the insider adds.
Kylie reportedly believes it’s not all Kris’ fault that her show is tanking.
No, some of the blame lies with the people that Kris hired:
“She is also blaming it on the editing team, which she says was hired by her mother and of course, she is blaming it on the time slot,” says the source.
And it seems Kylie isn’t alone in being concerned about what this could mean for her family’s empire.
“The family was really hoping that Kylie’s show was going to save the Kardashian’s reality TV reign, not hurt their brand as it seems to have done,” the insider claims.
“She is super distressed right now and is currently scrambling to shoot new material that will appeal to the audience.”
Of course, Kylie is nothing if not media savvy, and she’s likely aware that her target audience has already made up its mind.
“Ultimately, Kylie knows that she has to do something drastic for this to stay afloat,” says the tipster.
We know Kylie’s not into accepting blame at this point, but maybe “basically an hour long infomercial for a makeup line” wasn’t the format to attract millions of young people.
Just sayin’.
