Bachelorette Premiere: Everything you need to know

From ratings data to the men and everything to expect on the premiere, spoiler free, let's break it down

Welcome back to another season of The Bachelorette! 🌹 Earlier this year, Joey’s season of The Bachelor broke records in ratings and social media gains we hadn’t seen in years. We even saw contestants hit follower counts faster than we saw at the height of this franchise (2019-2020). So what can we expect for Jenn’s season? And what data do you need to know for the premiere? Let’s break things down, as always - spoiler free!

Podcast audio available for this episode! Listen to the post while getting some bonus thoughts that didn’t make the post 👀

🚨THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED TO INCLUDE INFORMATION FROM JENN’S PREMIERE - THIS INCLUDES WHO WAS ELIMINATED NIGHT 1! 🚨

RATINGS - What to expect

✨Jenn’s initial ratings have not been released as of Tuesday morning.

Joey’s season saw the first increase in ratings since Colton back in 2019, so will this have an impact on Jenn’s season? Short answer - possibly. Here are all the variables that impact ratings:

• Bachelor vs Bachelorette: Since 2008, Bachelor seasons have always had a higher viewership ratings than Bachelorette (full season average). The only Bachelorette Premieres that saw an increase in viewership from the previous season of The Bachelor were Emily Maynard (2012, increase of +270k from Ben Flajnik’s premiere) and Becca Kufrin (2018, increase of 17k from Arie Luyendyk). So Bachelorette always has lower viewership than Bachelor, which makes sense -summer shows have less viewers than winter shows.

• Media buzz: how much are people talking about the season before it starts and how much hype is there about the lead? How much marketing & advertising $$$ is being spent promoting the season?

• Race: is the lead white or a person of color? Historically, every season lead by a person of color has had lower ratings than the previous season. Note: This is comparing show to show, so Matt James (Bachelor Season 25) compared to Peter Weber (Bachelor Season 24).

My Prediction: Jenn will likely not see a premiere with as many viewers as Joey’s premiere saw but we likely won’t see as large of a decrease in viewership Charity saw compared to Gabby and Rachel’s premiere. As mentioned in the first factor above, it’s incredible rare for a Bachelorette premiere to outperform the previous Bachelor premiere. Since 2008, we’ve had 17 Bachelorette seasons. Only 2 of them outperformed the Bachelor that year. Additionally, POC led seasons have consistently underperformed in ratings compared to the previous white led seasons. This is an unfortunate reality of this franchise. That being said, Jenn was interviewed last week on Call Her Daddy - the 2nd largest podcast in the US and Globally. So I’m curious if that will increase the number of people tuning in impacting that data.

Premiere Stats to Watch For

Can historical stats tell you who will win the Bachelorette on night one? No, it won’t. But it will tell you who the “main characters” will be during the season. Now, this might sound like I’ve unlocked some crazy algorithm to how the leads make their choices but it’s actually just…… editing. 😂

During night 1 alone, production has hundreds of hours of footage between all the cameras they have and the ITM rooms (ITM = “it the moment” interviews where the contestants are in a small room talking to the camera answering questions from producers and talking about what just happened). On top of that, this is a TV show and it’s production’s job to build storylines to get people to tune in the next week to see what happens next. So when it comes to the premiere, they’re not going to focus on a group of men who will all be eliminated in the first 2-3 weeks. They’re going to focus on the storylines that will be relevant to Jenn’s season.

Limo Exit Order

Does the limo exit order matter? Short answer: Yes - but it’s thanks to production, and there’s a caveat to the order. What we see isn’t always how it actually happened. While a good chunk of contestants are shown in the order they actually came out, production has been known to edit the order (Nick Viall has even confirmed this himself). BUT - it’s more than just the order that matters! The time spent on each person as they exit the limo will tell you who is important to the season and who isn’t. There’s a point in each premiere where production will somewhat “skip through” the entrances of a group of contestants, either showing just a few words they said or even none at all while a voice over of the lead talking about how the night is going plays over the video. You can count those contestants out on your fantasy league, they won’t make it to the end.

✨Jenn’s Limo Exit Order✨

• Marcus (Intro Package)

• Marvin

• Sam N (Intro Package)

• Grant (Intro Package)

• Sam M (Intro Package)

• Thomas N (Intro Package)

• Brendan - Eliminated

• Dakota (Editing didn’t show much) - Eliminated

• Kevin (Editing didn’t show much) - Eliminated

• Spencer (Editing didn’t show much)

• Brian (Editing didn’t show much)

• Matt (Editing didn’t show much) - Eliminated

• Austin (Editing didn’t show much)

• Ricky (Editing didn’t show much) - Eliminated

• Tomas A

• Jonathon J

• Aaron (Intro Package)

• Jeremy

• Dylan (Intro Package)

• John M

• Brett - Eliminated

• Moze - Eliminated

• Jahaan

• Devin (Intro Package)

• Hakeem

Gimmick vs Traditional Limo Entrances

Every season we have a group of contestants that go beyond the “traditional” entrance where they introduce themselves and talk about how excited they are to be there. These “gimmick” entrances range from costumes, to arriving in unique modes of transportation, to bringing a memento from home, and more.

• Bachelorette leads choose Traditional limo entrances 63% of the time as their winner. While Bachelor leads only choose Traditional limo entrances 43% of the time.

• Gimmicks have been trending up over the last 13 years

Note: B’ette data is from 2014-2023 while Bachelor is 2011-2024. I still need to collect 2011-2013 for B’ette.

✨Jenn’s Data: Jenn’s men hit an all time high of 84% gimmick entrances. Only 4 men didn’t had a traditional entrance: Marcus, Brett, Moze, and Devin

Intro Packages

Intro Packages are the videos shot in the men’s hometowns showing us a bit about them and their lives before they leave for filming. Traditionally, we only see about 6-8 men get these. We normally see at least 2 of the final 4 men get intro packages. Charity’s season was pretty insane - all 4 were featured.

✨Jenn’s Data: The following men got intro packages - Marcus, Sam N, Grant, Sam M, Thomas N, Aaron, Dylan and Devin. None were eliminated night 1.

First Impression Rose: Women know how to pick them better 🌹

Looking at seasons from 2009-2024, women leads seem have a good eye night 1 for who their finalist will be. 65% of men who get the First Impression Rose make it to final 4 and 47% go on to win their season.

Meanwhile, Peter Weber is the only male lead who has picked his First Impression Rose…. and he ended the engagement a few weeks after filming ended. And only 31% made it to final 4. 😂 And 56% of women are eliminated weeks 6 or 7.

In short, the First Impression Rose 🌹 is *actually* worth something on The Bachelorette. It’s the kiss of death on The Bachelor.

✨Jenn’s Data: Sam McKinney got the First Impression Rose.

First Kiss

Here’s the Bachelorette history of night 1 kisses:

• Charity: 4 men, Xavier > John B > Aaron B > Brayden

• Gabby: 2 men, Mario > Erich 💍

• Rachel R: 1 man, Tino 💍

• Michelle: 1 man, Nayte 💍

• Katie: 3 men, Connor B > Justin > Greg

• Clare: 2 men, Blake M, Dale 💍

✨Jenn’s Data: Jenn only kissed 1 man, Sam McKinney.

Jenn’s Cast Breakdown

Age Analysis • States/Regions • Social Media • Race

Age Analysis

The average age of men cast before Jenn’s season was 29.1 years old - her men come in at 28.3 years, so a bit younger than 2003-2023. But casting younger men has been a trend in recent years. Rachel Lindsay, Clare & Tayshia, and Michelle’s seasons were the only ones with an average over 29.

States/Regions

Jenn currently lives in Miami, FL. The only men who live in Florida are Brian Autz, John Mitchell, and Ricky Marinez. But it’s pretty rare to have a lead choose someone who lives in their state.

Race

Based on the pre-season media coverage and interviews Jenn + producers are doing, race is going to be discussed frequently this season. So where do we stand when it comes to race and casting?

In the traditional breakdown we’ve done in the past of white and POC casting, this season is pretty 50/50. Approximately 52% of the cast is white and 48% are POC. That being said, there is only 1 confirmed Asian contestant. (Side note: I know some have speculated that Marcus might be mixed/Asian, I have confirmed with a close source that Marcus is adopted and doesn’t know his ethnicity.)

So, was this cast chosen for Jenn? That answer is no, but that’s because casting starts long before any lead is chosen. A couple months ago, a Bachelor casting producer made a Tiktok explaining how casting works. Bad news - she took down the Tiktok within 24 hours. Good news - I downloaded it before she did and will be recapping it this season. But everything she said falls in line with what we’ve known for years now. Typically, the lead for a season is finalized with a week or two of being announced. Prior to that, production is in talks with multiple people. More on this soon because I’m nearing my character limit for this post already, but here’s Jenn’s interview discussing the lack of Asian men on her season.

A must read if you missed it: the LA Times published ‘The Bachelor’ producers acknowledge ‘vicious cycle’ of racism in the franchise this last week where they interviewed 2 executive producers. If you don’t have a subscription, here was my takeaway: 1) They admit they have a problem and haven’t made enough efforts to fix it. 2) They say they’re aren’t interested in changing the minds of people who aren’t interested in this new direction. My takeaway? It’s hard to believe these statements. In 2020, they made a statement committing to showing more diverse love stories. In 2021, they cast Matt James and a 65% POC season. When I analyzed the first 6 episodes following Chris Harrison’s controversial interview, 54% of the contestant screen time had gone to white contestants despite only 35% of the cast (data). And even once they got to the Women Tell All, which was filmed AND edited after the interview, white contestants still took the lead (data). And then looking at Joey’s season, 59.4% of the cast were POC night 1 (after night 1 eliminations, POC were at 54%). Yet, when we look at screen time from contestants before hometowns, only 37.5% of it went to POC. It’s worth noting that only 33% of Joey’s 1-on-1 dates went to POC, which does account for the majority of contestant screen time each episode.

Social Media

We’ve got 3 men with a “large” following going into Jenn’s season. One of them, Sam Nejad, actually has more followers than Jenn on Tiktok and almost as many as her on Instagram but he’s already an influencer.

• Sam N: 464.1k total followers (183.4k - Insta, 280.8k - Tiktok)

• Jenn: 297.5k total followers (192.8k - Insta, 104.7k - Tiktok)

• Austin: 86.7k total followers (9.5k - Insta, 77.2k - Tiktok)

• Ricky: 39.4k total followers (2.7k - Insta, 36.6k - Tiktok)

Most Pre-Season Growth (3/25-7/1)

Note: The men with the most growth have been the ones who had featured videos/photos on bacheloretteabc Instagram account. The franchise has been tagging the men in most of the posts too!

• Jenn: +108.9k

• Sam N: +7.5k

• Aaron: +3.5k (Noah Erb from Bachelor in Paradise’s brother)

• Sam M: +3.4k

• Brett: +3.4k (this season’s only plus-sized contestant)

You can download my watch guide + social media follower information for each contestant here.

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