Andy DehnartI give The Real World a lot of shit for sucking and being an entirely different show than the one I fell in love with 15+ years ago, so I don’t want to ignore reality: even in its 22nd season, the show is performing extremely well, even among people in their early 30s.
For the past eight weeks, The Real World Cancun has been the most-popular original cable show on Wednesdays among people ages 12 to 34. That’s a really specific category, but it’s the group MTV loves, and it’s also interesting since the show’s creator says its core audience is 15 to 20. Clearly, people keep watching even after they enter their 20s.
In its most recent airing, MTV says in a press release that the show had “1.6 million total viewers” and “was #1 in its time period versus all cable competition,” and thus “[continued] its streak as Wednesday’s #1 original cable series among P12-34, now for eight weeks in a row.”