Olympic Ratings Plummet After Peacock Subscribers Discover ALF

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By Rich Taylor

PARIS — Widespread chaos has taken hold of NBCUniversal leadership, as early ratings for the 2024 Olympic Games have been, what one unnamed source described to End of the Bench as “dire.” 

The primary cause of this executive angst is the need for more viewership numbers for the games on Peacock. Rather than watch athletes from around the globe compete, new subscribers to NBC’s heavily promoted Olympic platform have discovered and become obsessed with the 1980s sitcom ALF.

“We shelled out $7.75 billion for the rights to the Olympics and the thinking was that it would boost Peacock subscribers and generate huge advertising revenue during the games,” explained a high-level NBC executive who wished to remain anonymous. “Well, it turns out that the minute people find Peacock, they also discover ALF on the home screen and cannot stop binging.”

ALF, an acronym for "Alien Life Form", follows the adventures of the title character, whose real name is Gordon Shumway, after he crash-lands in the garage of the suburban middle-class Tanner family. The program aired on NBC from 1986-1990.

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The network has since removed ALF from the home page, but not before the “damage” was done. Many took to social media to express their love for the series and frustration with the network for taking it off the air.

“Who knew you could watch an alien life form on Peacock,” said one user on the Olympic Reddit thread, before clarifying later in a reply that he wasn’t referring to Michael Phelps. 

ALF-related content on the popular social media platform TikTok has also seen a sharp increase, nearly doubling anything Olympic-themed. Hot trends include “If I lived on Melmac” and “If ALF Had My Job.”

In addition to increased advertising revenue, NBCUniversal had hoped to apply its trademark synergy overkill to promote everything under its corporate umbrella including Today Show personalities, Snoop Dog joining The Voice, the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, and the film version of the Broadway hit Wicked.

“Thanks to friggin’ ALF, next to nobody knows about any of our future big dollar plays,” lamented a senior programming executive. “We flew Colin Jost to Tahiti just so he could stand in the shallow water and talk about SNL. We have interns in Paris whose sole job is procuring weed for Snoop. And for what? So people can watch ALF chase a cat around the Tanner house!”

NBC has since removed ALF from Peacock entirely, a decision that resulted in millions of canceled subscriptions and boycott threats.

“Just when you remembered Peacock was a thing, they go and do this,” wrote a user on Twitter. “Now it’ll just be crappy Christmas movies and Superfan Episodes of The Office again. No thanks.”

End of the Bench will have more on this story after we finish another episode of ALF.

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