Ratings slide for ‘Siesta Key’ is over, at least for now

Maybe the exodus from “Siesta Key” is coming to an end.

The Sarasota-based MTV reality show never posted spectacular ratings, and it had been dropping week after week. The Aug. 21 episode, its fourth, drew only 438,000 viewers, only about two-thirds of the modest number of viewers who had watched the premiere.

But this week’s episode actually gained significant viewership. About 543,000 people watched it. That’s still about 125,000 fewer people than the premiere episode attracted, but it’s a significant boost from week four.

There had been some speculation from viewers of the show that MTV was gearing up to announce that the series had been renewed, especially after cast members made appearances at MTV’s Video Music Awards telecast on Sunday. But on Tuesday, an MTV representative said in an email to the Herald that the decision whether to renew had not been made.

The show set doesn’t appear to be winning over the critics, though. On Monday, Doreen St. Félix, a contributing writer for newyorker.com, wrote piece headlined “The Tedious, Homogenous Nostalgia of MTV’s ‘Siesta Key.’ ” She described the show as “sticky melodrama that wrings spectacle out of the diffuse anxieties of rich, white, young narcissists” and the cast as “are nearly all turgid onscreen presences.”

“What defines the hollowness of ‘Siesta Key,’ ultimately, is a lack of self-awareness,” she wrote. “No one wants a show about hot people who live on the beach to offer stern commentary on American mores. But viewers today expect their reality shows to relay some kind of cunning intelligence.”

Meanwhile, Cosmopolitan has had Spencer Pratt, of the “The Hills,” snark about “Siesta Key” from his “expert” point of view. Among his comments about this week’s episode: “I stopped believing everything Brandon was saying. He’s all ‘I’m a musician, I’m going to learn all these instruments this year.’ Yeah, like me, too, pal.” On Madisson’s date with Brandon: “It seemed like a bad commercial for Pac Sun.” And of the friendships among the young women in the cast: “I’ve never known a group of girls who could (have sex with) the same guy and then all hang out at each other’s apartments.”

“Siesta Key” airs at 10 p.m. Mondays on MTV.

This story was originally published August 30, 2017 at 1:25 PM with the headline "Ratings slide for ‘Siesta Key’ is over, at least for now."