Nick Cannon can scratch “talk show host” off his tax returns. Deadline reports that his self-titled syndicated talk show has been canceled after just one season. The original plan was to take a five week hiatus while he did The Masked Singer and Wild “N Out, but producers decided to forego that idea and end the show after taping its last two episodes. The series has done terribly in the ratings, ranking as the lowest-rated single-host daytime syndicated talk show.
Here’s the thing: Cannon is competing against shows hosted by Kelly Clarkson, Ellen DeGeneres, Sherri Shepherd and Tamron Hall, each of whom have a charm and likeability that he doesn’t really possess. Add in court shows, soap operas and Law & Order marathons, and the daytime schedule is a lot more crowded than it seems.
“It’s never easy to cancel a production with clear potential but, after a great deal of deliberation and examining various options, we have made the difficult business decision to end production on Nick Cannon,” Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein, co-presidents of Debmar-Mercury, said in a statement. “We plan to offer viewers original episodes of the daytime talk show through the remainder of this season. Our thanks go to the very talented Nick Cannon and our wonderful production team, and we wish Nick continued success with his many hit ventures.”
Nick Cannon is produced by Debmar-Mercury, the studio behind The Wendy Williams Show, which has been able to maintain strong numbers despite Wendy’s ongoing absence due to health issues. As we previously reported at The Root, Wendy Williams will end and frequent guest host Sherri Shepherd will launch her own talk show titled Sherri.
Nick Cannon is syndicated on Fox Television Stations, which also just announced the cancellation of The Good Dish. With Sherri and Jennifer Hudson’s new talk show waiting in the wings for next season, it was hard to justify continuing Nick Cannon.
For the show’s fans, there are still plenty of episodes left for this season, so there won’t be an immediate end to the series. In the meantime, you can still catch Cannon on the new season of The Masked Singer, which airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on FOX.