Duck Dynasty Season 6: All The Latest News On Whether The Duck Dynasty Will Be Renewed For Another Season Or End Up Being Cancelled

By John Kevin Muu Aug 05, 2014 08:05 AM EDT

Duck Dynasty Season 6: All The Latest News On Whether The Duck Dynasty Will Be Renewed For Another Season Or End Up Being Cancelled

It seems like this hit drama series may not get another season due to its poor rating for its sixth season. It's not yet clear if it will indeed be cancelled but critics say that the controversy surrounding Phil Robertson and his comments on homosexuality can be blamed for the supposed bad rating of the Duck Dynasty. However, David Mckillop begs to differ.

"It's a strong, strong franchise and will continue for a number of years. I don't think there's any definitive proof that the controversy itself had an impact on the ratings. These things tend to burn very, very bright and then begin to settle into a plateau." said McKillop.

Apparently, there are experts who agree with these assessments like Jeffrey McCall a media studies professor at DePauw University. "These kinds of 'reality' shows based on unique or unusual people usually don't have great staying power. Once viewers have seen the personalities and their lifestyles, the audiences tend to move along... 'Duck Dynasty' has already beaten the odds by getting into Season 6." He said.

But then again we do expect that A&E would not want to admit to any problems with their major money maker.

Now we cannot just ignore the fact that this series might not get another season. This is because the show peaked at around 11.8 million viewers last year and now the ratings have dropped with the audience being apparently 1/3 of its former strength this only means that the advertising revenue have also dropped tremendously. McKillop also revealed that advertisers did scrutinize the show more closely after Phil's homosexual comments came out but none of them pulled their ads.

He further adds that the cost of production is very low compared to most TV shows and a good amount of income comes from the $400 million in Duck Dynasty merchandise that was sold last year meaning that even though the ads were dropping the show is still generating money with products. Ira Mayer the publisher of the Licensing Letter says the situation is anything but normal. He said "It's not routine for any show to sell that level of merchandise. It had a huge following and a lot of word of mouth ... Wal-Mart went in really strong."

Now the season finale of The Duck Dynasty is coming on August 12 and A&E has already certified that season 7 will be released as planned. So, no, we will not see this series cancelled anytime soon.