It has been announced today that The Simpsons will no longer be shown on Channel 4 after 20 years. The iconic show, which follows the lives of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and all the Springfield inhabitants, has been broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 since 2004. However, it was announced on Tuesday (December 17) that from January it will no longer air at its 6:30pm weekday slot.
Instead, The Simpsons will be moving to E4, starting with season 32. Meanwhile, new seasons of the show, which include season 36, will premiere on Disney + before airing on E4. The new seasons will also reportedly be available on Channel 4’s streaming service for a limited time.
The news has stunned some fans of the show, meanwhile others have gone online to pinpoint when the programme started to 'decline'. A post appeared on Reddit which was titled, 'The Decline of the Simpsons', which featured IMDB viewer ratings since 1989.
It read: "The Simpsons is one of the most iconic TV shows ever created. It first aired in 1989 and continues to do so to this day, spanning over 31 seasons. "It soon became one of the most comedically successful shows in television history. However, over time, the comedic material and overall appeal of the show began to decline.
"I created a heat chart to show the audience ratings for every episode of every season. I also showed the average rating of each season. The data for this visualisation was scraped together from IMSB using Python.". This saw that the average rating for the early seasons of the show was around 8, however it declined steady – with it currently around the 6 mark.
