There Are Fears ‘The Bachelor’ Could Face The Axe In Channel Ten Overhaul

While there’s no reason to worry just yet, there are rumours circulating this weekend that a number of beloved Channel Ten shows may be facing the chop as part of an overhaul by the network’s new owners, with The Bachelor Australia and its companion show The Bachelorette amongst them.

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The troubled network went in to voluntary administration in June of 2017, following a half-year loss of $232 million. Ten’s largest creditor at the time was US broadcasting giant CBS, who quickly swooped in with a takeover bid, and had acquired the company by November.

Speaking with The Sunday Telegraph, an unnamed Channel Ten ‘source’ said: “The feeling at CBS when they bought the company was that they’d observe Ten for a year before intervening. That year is up in November so they are now monitoring the content for 2019 more closely.”

The source claims that several shows are “under review” thanks to their ratings performance, specifically SurvivorPointless and I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, which is set to return for a shortened four-week season in January, after a ratings drop this year.

Surprisingly, the insider claims that The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are also facing possible cancellation as the shows are “too similar” to each-other for both to survive.

While it seems extremely far-fetched that Ten would axe one or both of its most high-profile shows, especially a ratings winner like Bachie, whose his’n’hers structure is a long-established format in the US, anything’s possible, depending on how badly CBS wants to overhaul Ten’s content.

The source claims that established hits Masterchef and Gogglebox are both safe through 2019. They will be joined by new shows including a reboot of Dancing With The Stars, and local versions of two UK shows, Emergency and Sunday Night Takeaways.

The word of an unnamed source in the Sunday Telegraph is hardly anything official, but we’ll still be very interested to see how the coming seasons of Bachelor and Bachelorette, starring Nick Cummins and Ali Oetjen respectively, play out in the ratings.

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