Why hasn't Power's popularity translated to the mainstream?

Los Angeles Times

As Greg Braxton notes, the departing Starz series has grown in each season, with Season 5 averaging 10.8 million viewers across all platforms. Yet, he adds," the series has never been nominated for an Emmy, and gets little attention from prominent media outlets, particularly when compared to Empire, which, during its heyday, was a pop culture darling." Darnell Hunt, director of UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, thinks he has an explanation for Power's lack of mainstream attention compared to Empire. "Empire had a certain aura that this show on Starz was not going to get,” he says. “There were no Oscar nominees. It wasn’t going to get the same amount of attention. It’s a grittier show, where Empire was more like a soap opera, campy. Power was never going to cross over into the mainstream the same way.” The lack of attention doesn't bother Power creator Courtney A. Kemp. "At the time we came on, there were very few shows like it with the kind of representation we were doing — multicultural representation," she says. "There’s also our combination of violence, sexuality, family and romance. We’re like a salad. We’re a lot of different things. There’s something for everybody.” ALSO: Omari Hardwick recalls almost turning down the career-changing Power role.