‘Golden Bachelor’ is Silver Lining for the Long-Running TV Franchise

For over 20 years, The Bachelor and its various franchise installments have captivated the hearts of TV audiences everywhere. ABC smelled the roses early on and has milked this appetite for reality TV love for all its worth, and its most recent iteration, The Golden Bachelor, tapped into one demographic that may not come to mind when you think of reality TV: senior citizens. 

On Nov. 30, the inaugural season wrapped up with 72-year-old bachelor Gerry Turner proposing to Theresa Nist (70 years old) who, of course, said yes. The couple will be wed during a live ABC special on Jan. 4, 2024. Inscape shared a few insights around viewership for the season. 

• The Golden Bachelor premiere on Sept. 28 captured a 3.11% primetime viewership share, second only to the 2023 People's Choice Country Awards (3.79%). 
• By comparison, the season nine premiere of Bachelor in Paradise, which debuted immediately following Golden, only scored a 0.93% share (No. 26 primetime program). 
• Golden has consistently outpaced Paradise for primetime viewership share all fall.
• The top episode by share for Golden was, predictably, the finale, which accounted for 7.39% of all primetime minutes watched on Nov. 30. It was the evening’s most-watched program, snagging more than twice the share of the No. 2 program, Hannity’s DeSantis vs. Newsom debate on Fox News (2.94% primetime share). 
• The second highest Golden episode by share was The Women Tell All episode on Nov. 9 (3.58%).  
• Golden bachelor Gerry Turner has been getting some social media action as well: According to CreatorIQ, he has an “exemplary” 16.18% engagement rate on Instagram, and has enjoyed a 106% growth in followers over the course of the season. By comparison, the most recent OG-Bachelor, Zach Shallcross (S27), has a 7.37% Instagram engagement rate (considered “excellent” by CreatorIQ).