The Numbers Don't Lie

I love Britney Spears. Anyone who knows me knows that. Which is why it's so disheartening to say that, as of now, X-Factor wasted its $15M on her.
Although the shows have been entertaining, Britney just hasn't brought in the viewers. The first two shows saw less than nine million people tune in. Even with all the hype and promo, The Voice beat out X-Factor's big debut. From there, the numbers got better, but only the fourth show reached 10 million viewers.
The Wednesday shows routinely do better ratings with the second hour always higher than the first. Unfortunately, you can't say the show is growing its audience because this Wednesday's show was only the fourth most watched. In fact, Thursday show, featuring Britney's and LA Reid's teams will be one of the least watched (once final numbers come in; preliminary numbers have the show as the least watched, but they could trend upward slightly).
Paying Britney $15M to get the same ratings as Survivor seems ridiculous when you realize that no one on Survivor makes anywhere near that kind of money. There's no chance Britney comes back for a second season unless the live shows see a major ratings increase.
I know there is a lot of competition - Modern Family, Survivor, Big Bang Theory - but that competition existed last year and X-Factor did as well or even better.
Other than saying how awesome Britney's been as a judge, it's hard to spin it to make it look like she's been worth the money. Doesn't it seem like Simon Cowell could have kept Paula Abdul or Nicole Scherzinger, brought in Demi Lovato, and still be doing the same ratings. There'd be less buzz, sure, but buzz hasn't lead to viewers. I know there's been lots of talk on social media about the show, but people talk on social media about Idol and that show didn't fare so well last season.
Obviously, this won't affect Britney's career. She'll still be in demand. It's just disheartening to see that maybe she's not quite as popular as she used to be.
Fortunately, we haven't reached the live shows yet. There's a chance people are merely waiting until then to turn in. Maybe people want to see Britney unedited. It's possible that the numbers could see a big climb when the show goes live in a few weeks. I hope so. Britney's good. So is Demi.
In life it's about quality over quantity. Unfortunately, in business it's mostly about quantity. Not, how good is your product, but, how many people are buying it. We need more buyers for X-Factor. It's actually a pretty good product.