"The Situation" dipped to its lowest ratings point on Wednesday night, averaging 148,000 viewers, and scratching in the 25-54 demo with 39,000. A story about Tucker Carlson's MSNBC ratings could be approached from two directions: "No one wants to watch The Situation!" or "Carlson isn't going to find an audience overnight." Choose your own narrative: Here are the daily ratings, in total viewers and the 25-54 demo, for MSNBC's 9pm timeslot since The Situation premiered on June 13:

June 13: 452,000 / 177,000

June 14: 231,000 / 87,000

June 15: 198,000 / 77,000

June 16: 202,000 / 79,000

June 17: 172,000 / 89,000

June 20: 194,000 / 92,000

June 21: 172,000 / 52,000

June 22: 148,000 / 39,000

For the eight nights, the average rating is a 0.2, with 221,000 viewers and 86,000 in the 25-54 demo. But that total viewer number is skewed because of the show's relatively high first-day rating: Notice the viewership slide in recent days. So which narrative will it be: No one wants to watch, or will it take time to find an audience?

> Update: 2:31pm: "I don't think those numbers look that much worse than the typical MSNBC program's ratings," Joann e-mails. "And when you consider how MSNBC has been toying around with that timeslot for so long, it's a miracle that anyone even knows that a permanent program is on in that time slot."

> Update: 3:32pm: Vaughn Ververs' review: "'The Situation' is at least making an attempt to break out of the stale cable news format. What it really needs is to let go of the formulaic judgement process...In short, focus on what everyone else is ignoring." (Via FishBowlDC)

> Update: 6:11pm: On Thursday night, The Situation averaged 153,000 viewers, including 73,000 in the 25-54 demo.