Hello up there, ratings line!

– In this article I mentioned how “The Real World: Denver’s” Nielsen numbers were down from the previous year, signaling declining viewership. But if advertisers are still paying for spots on the show, which targets an extremely valuable audience that MTV consistently delivers, “The Real World” can still be making money even as fewer people are watching it. In fact, even with fewer viewers the show may be more valuable now than it was in the past.

– Of course, TV networks are notorious for their ability (and willingness) to spin numbers whichever way makes them look best, so it’s often hard to get a true metric of viewership. But here are some numbers furnished to The Denver Post directly from MTV’s Ariana Urbont…

And I quote:

– “Real World Denver ranks #1 in its time period (Wed 10-1030p) among P12-34 versus cable competition.

– Real World Denver has reached 94 million total viewers. (Includes premiere and repeat airings)

– Real World: Denver is currently the #1 show amongst video content on MTV.com, with over 3.9 million streams in April.

– RW Denver has been the third most popular show on the site since the season premiere.

– Since launching in November, Real World: Denver has had a total of 23.3 million streams. Of these streams 12.6 million have been comprised of Full Episode clips and 6.5 million have been of the After Shows.” (emphasis added)

– So… MTV says nearly 100 million people watched the show. Not bad, if you count every time it aired, which was like 80 bazillion times if you count re-reruns. Our numbers peg the average episode viewership at 2.2 million, down from 2.6 million for the Key West season. In any event, it certainly didn’t hurt MTV’s web traffic.

– Here’s some more “Real World: Denver” follow-up news, directly from MTV:

“Real World Denver Reunion Special� - will air Wednesday May 23rd at 10pm ET/PT. Find out what the cast of the ‘Real World Denver’ has been up to since moving out.

“The Real World S**t They Should Have Shown� - will air Wednesday, May 30th at 9pm ET/PT. Never-before-seen clips from the Real World Denver.