Marijuana Drought Shrinks Ratings for Fox’s “Hole in the Wall”
Studio City, CA – Researchers at Fox Television announced today that they have confirmed that a recent nationwide shortage of marijuana has been the cause of dwindling ratings for Fox’s new show “Hole in the Wall” (also known as “Human Tetris” on youtube).
An adaptation of the Japanese game “Brain Wall”, “Hole in the Wall” requires contestants to contort their bodies to fit through cutouts in a Styrofoam wall that moves towards them. It premiered on the Fox Network on September 7, 2008 and had been doing well in the ratings up until just two weeks ago. However, after that point, the ratings took a dive for no apparent reason.
Because of the large amount of money the Fox Network has invested in the show, Rupert Murdoch himself appointed a special team of researchers and told them to leave no stone unturned in their quest for answers.
This proved to be more difficult than previously thought. The team was completely baffled and were unable to come up with any definitive answer for more than three days. However, they caught their big break in the case when they overheard two employees in the mail room talking about how much they loved the show, but were unable to watch more than two or three minutes of it when they weren’t stoned. This led to a continued discussion about how difficult it was to find pot these days with everyone in town being dry. The researchers decided to dig deeper into this information to see if it was valid.
What they found was a groundswell of evidence that essentially proves the theory correct. One month ago, a collaboration between the DEA, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the California Highway Patrol netted five of the largest marijuana busts in United States history. Each bust intercepted hundreds of pounds of high grade marijuana that was headed for college campuses, California pharmacies, and aging hippies. From there it would have found its way into the hands of “Hole in the Wall’s” target demographic: 18-34 year old males that like to catch a buzz.
With the front end of the theory proved, researchers began work to determine if there was a correlation between marijuana consumption and viewing time.. Through nationwide anonymous surveys, the researchers found that excitement for the show was through the roof regardless of sobriety, but viewers that watched while under the influence of marijuana were able to watch an entire episode, whereas viewers not under the influence of marijuana turned the channel after just three minutes.
After the research team presented its findings to Rupert Murdoch he immediately started looking for ways to ease the marijuana drought. With too many assets to risk dabbling in the marijuana trade, he spent $200 million buying twelve different salvia companies. He hopes flooding the city with that will inject some needed life into the ratings of the show.
