Ooops. It turns out that people just weren't that interested in Sarah Palin's big April Fools' Day debut.

As a refresher, last week Palin launched a new show called "Sarah Palin's Real American Stories." (Get it? Sarah Palin's a real American!) The show, marketed as a one-night special with hints that it could return from time to time in the future, launched in the 10pm timeslot normally held by Greta Van Susteren. (Greta's husband is a big Palin backer.)

Though Palin's new show did manage to win the 10pm timeslot, as is typical for Fox, her ratings were significantly down compared to Van Susteren -- even though Palin's broadcast was a much-hyped special.

The numbers (emphasis added):

"Real American Stories" delivered 2.073 million Total Viewers and 472k A25-54 viewers, down 10% versus last Thursday among Total Viewers and down 28% in A25-54. For all Thursdays in March 2010, the "Stories" premiere was down 10% among Total Viewers and down 19% in A25-54. Looking at quarter hour data, "Real American Stories" shed viewers from start to finish -- down 18% among Total Viewers (2.319mm vs. 1.895mm) and down 22% in A25-54 (533k vs. 418k) from the program's first to its final quarter hour.

Those last stats are striking: At least 1 out of every 5 viewers who started out watching the show changed the channel or turned off the set.

People may love talking about Sarah Palin, but even on Fox, they just don't like watching her. The sharp viewer drop-off is a perfect example of the Palin Paradox: if it weren't for television, Sarah Palin would be an absolute zero -- nobody would care about her at all. But at the same time, the more she goes on television, the worse her image gets.

The medium that created her could ultimately destroy her. Maybe she should think about sticking to Facebook and Twitter. But if she only did that, would anybody care?

More discussion of Palin's awesome ratings is taking place in Socratic Method's recommended diary.