Teen Mom: The Next Chapter premiered last week, kicking off yet another season starring MTV’s favorite thirty-something “Teen Moms.” While the show continues to hang on, despite the fact that the kids born on the show are now 16 themselves—sadly, the same can’t be said for the viewers.
Despite a herculean effort by MTV and the ‘Teen Mom’ stars to promote the new 2B Season via interviews and snazzy preview clips and whatnot, viewers just didn’t tune in. In fact, the first episode of the season— which premiered on January 30— had some of the lowest Live+ Same Day ratings for an episode since the show first premiered in 2022!
Programming Insider reports that Episode 1— which focused in part on Maci Bookout coming together with Ryan Edwards to buy their son Bentley a car for his 16th birthday— only had a measly 205,000 viewers, with a sad 0.08 A18-49 rating share. (This number measures the amount of people aged 18-49— who are coveted viewers to advertisers– who watched the show either live or sometime in the hours after the premiere.)
Obviously, with the invention of streaming services, etc., ratings for TV shows have changed a lot since ‘Teen Mom’ originally premiered in 2010. (Back then, the show was legit getting millions of viewers an episode.)
However, when Season 2B Episode 1 is compared to other episodes of the show, it still falls toward the bottom of the ratings heap. For instance, the last episode of Season 2A– which aired on September 12, 2024— brought in 250,000 viewers. The previous episode, which aired on September 5, was very low with only 191,000 viewers, but the August 29 episode clocked in with 256,000 viewers.
The Season 1 episodes and the first episodes of Season 2A faired a bit better, averaging between 250,000 and 350,000 viewers.
While the ‘Teen Mom’ franchise is quite “long in the tooth,” another long-running MTV reality show, The Challenge, premiered its latest season, “All Stars: Rivals” just one night before ‘Next Chapter’, and garnered much-higher ratings. The premiere of ‘All Stars: Rivals” brought in 314,000 viewers and a 0.13 A18-49 rating.
Despite her castmates doing interviews and plugging the new episodes on their social media accounts, Amber Portwood is actually doing the opposite of trying to promote the new season. As The Ashley previously told you, Amber hit TikTok Live last week to rant about her baby daddy Gary Shirley and to encourage the show’s fans not to watch the new season, as she feels it portrays her in a false light.
“I guess you do watch some bulls**t version of me…Stop watching it then,” Amber said of the show. “Stop watching it. I would never advocate for something that shows somebody I don’t even like or know. They let [Gary] talk, talk and talk, and why do you think it is? It’s better TV guys. People want to hate me.”
Despite the low ratings, there appears to be no signs (as of now, anyway) that ‘Teen Mom’ will finally come to an end. Maci Bookout was recently asked by The Cut if she has considered leaving the show. While she stated that she has “definitely” considered leaving, because she sometimes feels like she “has nothing left to give” to the franchise, she remains committed to being on ‘Teen Mom,’ because, even if she leaves, she will always be associated with the show.
“I quickly realize that just because I wouldn’t be on the show doesn’t mean that everything that comes with the show goes away … if I take the blessing away, the curse doesn’t go away,” she said.
RELATED STORY: Amber Portwood Claims Gary Shirley is “Blackmailing” Her & Begged Her to Return to ‘Teen Mom’; Encourages Fans to “Stop Watching” Show
(Photos: MTV)
11 Responses
I would *maybe* watch it (or at least have it playing in the background while I fold laundry and cook) if it would premiere on Paramount Plus the same/next day. Most of us don’t pay for cable anymore and definitely won’t just to watch crap like this. TLC puts all their (much more popular) shows on Discovery Plus the next day and that’s working out fine for them.
I quit when The Swamp King killed innocent Nugget! MTV didn’t even kick them off immediately, only when sponsors threatened to quit. Ridiculous!
Honestly, Cheyenne ruined it for me. Wanting to kill white babies sure pays well, no? Severed ties right when that came out. Can’t stand her.
I quit watching after the machete incident. Amber should have been fired.
I pretty much fast forwarded most it before that honestly.
Same. She’s said some vile racist stuff but steadily claims to be the victim of racism. Taylor Never-Wharton was kicked off the show for awhile for some much more mild (i.e. in poor taste but not hateful/violent) tweets from her past and Cheyenne literally called a meeting with Cory and Taylor to discuss it all. She’s a huge hypocrite. She was also never at any point in her life a teen mom and has always just been a spoiled rich girl. I don’t get why she was even put on the show in the first place.
MTV– want ratings?
Cut this cast. All of them.
Bring in less millionaires and instead, more struggling younger women.
Your cast is why the show sucks.
YOUR CAST IS WHY THE SHOW SUCKS.
YOUR CAST IS COSTING YOU RATINGS.
Yes! Keep the turnover regular (maybe a couple seasons, or even skip a year or two and bring a girl back to catch up) and don’t pay the girls crazy amounts. That’s why people are more interested in Unexpected these days.
I have questioned why MTV keeps this show on. The ratings have been plummeting for years now. And honestly I think we are all just sick of them at this point.
Is MTV a money laundering front? Between this and not having any other quality shows, then can’t be bringing in that much money.
Ridiculousness has been paying the bills at MTV for quite awhile.
The producers of this shit show are dumber than shit. All of the people on this show are smarter than the producers, this show should have been cancelled YEARS AGO.