Despite a major change up in trainers and contestants, it seems The Biggest Loser: Transformation is still not resonating with Australian audiences. And now following a disappointing start to the 2017 season, it’s being dropped from its prime-time 7.30pm slot.
“We’re disappointed,” Channel Ten’s program chief Beverley McGarvey told news.com.au this week. “It really hasn’t resonated with audiences the way we had hoped.”
The show will now air at 1pm from Mondays to Thursdays.
Now in its 11th season, the disappointing news comes following a reboot of the series, which had been struggling with ratings for a number of years. Controversially, this year, the show hosted a contestant who weighed 78kg, which many viewers felt hardly qualified 'overweight enough' for the show.
On March 14, the latest season premiered on Channel 10 to just 474,000 viewers. Just 14 days later, ratings had dropped almost by half, with just 254,000 people tuning in.
“We hoped it would do a lot better but it simply hasn’t. We think we’ve given it as long as we possibly can," McGarvey said.
Listen: The Binge discuss the pros and cons of The Biggest Loser. Post continues...
“It is a very competitive time of year. There are two very established shows on (My Kitchen Rules and Married at First Sight) that are creating a lot of noise."
Trainers Shannan Ponton and Libby Babet have not commented on the time slot change.
What do you think about this season of The Biggest Loser? Have you been watching?
Top Comments
I've never enjoyed this show.
The shows in the past had an element of "Sideshow Freaks" about them. Morbidly obese people served up as dysfunctional and "disobedient" who not only endured the discomfort & pain of activities their compromised bodies were subjected to, but the disgraceful bullying that came from sanctimonious "trainers" with no medical / psychological knowledge or apparent kindness.
Morbidly obese people don't usually get that way because they're lazy or despicable.............there's often an underlying health issue.
Nobody (in this society anyway ) wants to be fat - so why are they ?
Obesity often happens because people don't (or can't ) MOVE enough to burn up extra calories.
If bona-fide science TV programs are still examining the complexity of the problem, what makes us think that a show like this is the answer ?
People are waking up about the integrity of all kinds of things right now from "weight-loss TV shows & the weight-loss Industry " to "relationship TV shows" and even the political scene in another country.
Cobbling together a TV show about "real-people's problems" has never been more difficult.
I'm honestly sick of people voting each other off. I'd like to watch a show with 12 people who all lose weight and become better people by supporting each other over the 8 weeks and then celebrate at the end. It wouldn't be car-crash drama, but I'm sure there'd be some comedy and there'd definitely be information we can all use. Why watch and care about people who are probably going to leave in an awkward and sad way? In the initial promo videos I thought this was the 'Transformed' bit of the show, but after the first episode explained it was going to be the same, we stopped watching.