Advocates for the deaf and hard-of-hearing cheered the
move, and they wondered: would viewers tune in specifically for the
almost-silent episode of the series, “Switched at Birth,” one of ABC
Family’s most popular? Or would viewers turn it off, potentially
perturbed by the lack of audio? There was a normal musical score, and a
scene at the beginning of the episode with audible dialogue, but the
rest of the dialogue was in sign language.
Broadly speaking,
neither outcome came true. The show’s overnight Nielsen ratings were
down, but only slightly. Most fans of the show stayed with it — 1.6
million, according to the overnight ratings. The series this season has
averaged 1.7 million viewers.
In the show’s target demographic,
women 12 to 34, 748,000 viewers tuned in, down just a little bit from
the season average of 777,000. About a quarter of those viewers usually
record the show and watch it later, so the final ratings won’t come in
for a while.
“Switched at Birth” features several deaf or
hard-of-hearing characters, so every episode incorporates sign language
in some way. But Monday’s episode went further.
“The concept of the episode is ‘this is what life is like for a deaf person,’”
Lizzy Weiss, the creator, said in an interview.
While the episode was being televised on Monday night,
Ms. Weiss quipped on Twitter, “Are commercials always this loud or are our ears readjusted after watching” the all-sign language episode?
