The idea that the quality of content determines viewership is so utterly ahistorical that it’s laughable. We can go through the history of filmed entertainment and find tens of thousands of examples of how untrue the idea actually is. The greatest TV show of all time, The Wire, suffered low viewership while garbage like CSI and Big Bang Theory thrives. In the last year we’ve seen the dismal failure of all sorts of very good films - Furiosa, Fall Guy, Dungeons & Dragons, Mission: Impossible… on and on.
Does quality play a role in determining popularity? Sometimes. But the idea that quality and popularity have some sort of direct, predictable relationship is, quite frankly, Populist nonsense. The audience is changeable, irrational, and persuadable - and it always has been.