Monday, December 07, 2009

Warner Bros. cancels "Bonnie Hunt"

Chicago-born comedian Bonnie Hunt has lost her talk show.

Ms. Hunt announced to her staffers today that The Bonnie Hunt Show would not return for a third season. The program had two-year contracts with the NBC owned-and-operated stations (including WMAQ-TV here in Chicago), but it appears NBC has passed on renewing the show on its owned stations for a third season.

Ratings were definately not on her side - recently, the show averaged a 0.8 Nielsen household rating, ranking it near the bottom of syndicated talk shows, only ahead of NBC Universal's The Martha Stewart Show, which also airs on those same NBC O&Os (with the exception of  WRC-TV in Washington, which does not air Martha.)

Warner Bros. had no comment. There was talk if Hunt's talk show was renewed for a third season, it possibly could move production to her hometown of Chicago.

With Hunt out of the picture, NBC stations' could pick up MomLogic from Warner for a replacement, but the renewal chances of both Martha and Deal or No Deal - another ratings laggard - have suddenly gone up - and both shows' syndicator being NBC Universal doesn't hurt, either. Last week, Martha had an 0.6 rating; Deal an 1.1.

NBC-owned stations have picked up off-cable repeats of The Real Housewives... for this fall and could easily plug that show into Hunt's former slots.

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