Local News

Seattle Times news librarian Gene Balk crunches the numbers

Seattle’s Jinkx Monsoon on Logo’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race”

Reality TV has embraced Seattle this season.  No sooner had the crew of “Top Chef: Seattle“  packed their knives and gone than last week’s big news broke: local graphic designer/vegan blogger Catherine Giudici won the coveted final rose on “The Bachelor.”  Meanwhile — and surely attracting a different audience demographic than “The Bachelor” — Seattle actor and drag performer Jinkx Monsoon (aka Jerick Hoffer) is a current frontrunner on the Logo network’s hit show, “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”  And as if that weren’t enough, Yanni’s Greek restaurant in Phinney Ridge received a Gordon Ramsay “Kitchen Nightmares” makeover on last Friday’s episode.

Clearly, reality TV loves Seattle — but do we love it back?

Market data show that we are, at best, lukewarm on the genre.  Out of 96 metropolitan areas in the U.S., Seattle ranks a middling 37th for the percentage of folks who say they are fans of reality television.  We don’t mind the talent-based competitions so much, but we’re completely turned off by the dating/romantic ones — we rank in the bottom 10 for that variety of reality show (Sorry, Ms. Giuduci).

So if not Seattle, where can you find reality TV’s biggest fans?  Look no further than the City of Destiny.  Yes, Tacomans are the nation’s No. 1 reality TV junkies.   Folks from Tacoma are 20 percent more likely than the national average to say they typically watch reality shows.  Why?  Your guess is as good as mine, but apparently they’ve had more than their fair share of reality TV stars, too.

Here is the list of top 10 metros for reality TV watchers:

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Source: Scarborough Research, Multimarket 2011 & 2012 release 2