After several weeks of epically low ratings, FOX has pulled the Tuesday offerings “Riot” and “I Wanna Marry 'Harry,'” replacing them with a quartet of comedy repeats.
In the short-term, all remaining episodes of “I Wanna Marry 'Harry'” will be made available on Fox.com, FOX OnDemand, FOX NOW and Hulu starting on Friday (June 13) afternoon. There are no current plans along those lines for “Riot,” though FOX says that the network is “currently discussing an appropriate place on our schedule for the unaired episodes.”
It's hard to imagine that such a place will exist after “Riot” drew only 1.18 million viewers in its Tuesday airing, a number that looks positively robust compared to the 991,000 viewers for “I Wanna Marry 'Harry.'” Both shows averaged a 0.4 rating among adults 18-49. Audiences just weren't excited about sketch comedy on an incline or bimbos thinking a near-heir to the British throne might do a dating show featuring only American women.
I tried to dig up some particularly ugly numbers for “Riot” or “I Wanna Marry 'Harry,'” — “Harry,” for example, had a 0.1 this week among men 18-34 — but the honest truth is that the overall and 18-49 numbers were so low that slicing them up into specific demos accomplishes very little. “Riot” and “I Wanna Marry 'Harry'” were shunned by audiences irrespective of gender or age.
Effective immediately, FOX will use Tuesdays as a showcase for comedy encores with “Family Guy,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “New Girl” and “The Mindy Project” taking the 8 to 10 p.m. slots.
And if you were thinking “Wouldn't this be a good place for FOX to air the existing shelved episodes of 'Us & Them'?” That answer is, apparently, “No.”
Are you saddened by the loss of “Riot” or “I Wanna Marry 'Harry'”?