Excellence in Broadcasting - Reception

Reception

"Excellence in Broadcasting" was broadcast on October 3, 2010, as a part of an animated television night on Fox, and was preceded by The Simpsons, and Family Guy creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane's spin-off, The Cleveland Show, and followed by the 100th episode of American Dad!. It was watched by 7.94 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings, despite airing simultaneously with Desperate Housewives on ABC, the season premiere of Undercover Boss on CBS and Sunday Night Football on NBC. The episode also acquired a 3.9 rating in the 18–49 demographic, beating American Dad! and The Cleveland Show in addition to significantly edging out both shows in total viewership. The episode's ratings decreased significantly from the show's season premiere.

Television critics reacted mostly mixed to "Excellence in Broadcasting", calling the storyline "funny," but "toothless." In a simultaneous review of the episodes of The Simpsons and The Cleveland Show that preceded the show, and the broadcast of American Dad! that followed it, The A.V. Club's Rowan Kaiser noted, "most of the episode was spent justifying its existence as a Rush Limbaugh episode of Family Guy," and that the episode "failed to do that." In the conclusion of his review Kaiser praised Family Guy for its past political humor, but ultimately rated it as a D, the second worst rating, behind The Simpsons episode "Loan-a Lisa" and the American Dad! episode "100 A.D.", beating only The Cleveland Show episode "Cleveland Live!". In a slightly more positive review, Jason Hughes of TV Squad praised Limbaugh's appearance in the episode, commenting Limbaugh "certainly deserves credit for his willingness to participate and lend his own voice." Hughes went on to comment positively on the episode's debut of the high-definition opening sequence, and its introduction of Joyce Kinney as a replacement for news anchor Diane Simmons, who was killed off in "And Then There Were Fewer". Adam Markovitz of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "The show definitely skewered Brian’s hardcore conservative conversion, but overall it seemed like a pretty fair fight."

Limbaugh's appearance in the episode has drawn both praise and criticism from news outlets, including Daniel Foster of National Review who commented, "It is to Mr. Limbaugh's credit that he can make fun of himself. But Seth MacFarlane, the whiskey-soaked Dada creator of Family Guy, is responsible for more sophomoric cartooning than the combined patrons of America’s truck stop and dive bar bathrooms." Foster went on to add, "I can only look at the Limbaugh-MacFarlane mash-up with a wary eye." Columnist Matt Lewis of Politics Daily also questioned Limbaugh's appearance on Family Guy, citing his support for former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, whose daughter, Bristol Palin, has openly criticized MacFarlane and called the show's writers "heartless jerks." In contrast, John Nolte of Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood wrote, "What MacFarlane’s doing fits exactly into our template. He’s entitled to his opinion, worked very hard to reach the top of the most difficult business there is to succeed in, and in turn uses that forum to further his own agenda — that’s how it’s supposed to work. But at the same time he doesn’t completely shut us out." Prior to the episode's official broadcast on television in the United States, Jarett Wieselman of the New York Post called Limbaugh's guest appearance in the episode "genuinely funny," and David Weigel of Slate commented, "I'm not at all surprised that Limbaugh would embrace the show and answer its mockery of conservatives; the plotline is a perfect conservative narrative."