'Ricki Lake Show Cancelled After One Season; Talk Show Had Low Ratings
Twentieth Television, the studio that produced The Ricki Lake Show, will not renew the show for a second season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ricki Lake, the 44-year-old who devoted 11 years on air with her previous self-titled daytime show before that was cancelled in 2004, returned to the small screen last fall to give it one last shot. For her new show, she aimed to appeal to her core audience through topics that hopefully inspired them. However, Lake was never able to pull in an adult female audience she was targeted to serve.
"We would like to thank Ricki Lake, as well as executive producer Gail Steinberg and the entire staff for their work this season," Stephen Brown, executive vice president of programming and development for Twentieth Television, said in a statement announcing the cancellation.
The Ricki Lake Show launched in September 2012. She previously owned the title for a 90's day-time talker that often surpassed Oprah Winfrey's long-lived show in terms of ratings. The revamped show endured new challenges, though, and was up against new faces like Katie Couric, Steve Harvey and Jeff Probst, each of whom had their own talk shows.
The show had low viewership, only managing to capture under a million viewers with a 0.7 household rating and a 0.5 rating in the key demographic group of women between the ages of 25 and 54. In metered markets, she averaged a 2 percent share of the viewing audience. Couric's show pulled in a 1.9 rating.
Lake's show aired mostly in the afternoon and was anchored on the Tribune TV stations in major cities including New York, Denver and Cleveland. Her show played on Fox stations in Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston. It was also on stations owned by Sun Broadcasting, Sinclair, Granite, Citadel and Post Newsweek.
The Hairspray actress seems to have no hard feelings about the cancellation of her show.
"I am so proud of the shows we completed this season, sparking important conversations about everything from raising children to mental illness to suicide prevention to coming out," Lake said in a statement. "I will continue to be an active and passionate voice for subjects that are close to my heart through a variety of platforms -- and a return to my documentary filmmaking work with Abby Enstein. I am excited to create meaningful and provocative films similar to our 2007 project, The Business of Being Born."
