Fox had immense hopes pinned on its reality series, Utopia, going into the season. They spent $50 million to develop the show, which was adapted from the Dutch format by John de Mo, and scheduled the year-long series — a cross between Survivor, Big Brother and Lord of the Flies — on Tuesdays and Fridays. They had hopes that it would be huge enough for the network that they could plug the ongoing reality competition into any other holes that opened up on their schedule due to cancellations.
Turns out, Utopia was the first to be cancelled. They pulled the plug on Tuesday nights in early October after ratings plummeted, and were only airing it on Friday nights, where the most recent episode hit a 0.5 rating among adults 18-49 and 1.5 million viewers. Those are terrible, terrible numbers for a network series, even on Friday nights. Those numbers are even worse than Enlisted when that sitcom was airing on Friday nights (and surely didn’t cost the network $50 million to develop).
Utopia is the latest disappointment for Fox, which is having a dreadful season. Not only has American Idol fallen in recent years, but New Girl and The Mindy Project are struggling badly on Tuesdays, Sleepy Hollow’s audience continues to dwindles, Red Band Society doesn’t have a shot in hell at a second season on Wednesdays, and Mulaney on Sundays has already had its season order shortened.
Repeats of MasterChef Junior will air in its place on Friday nights (the first runs will air on Tuesdays, were the other installment of Utopia used to run).
Utopia is the fourth official cancellation of the season, following Manhattan Love Story on ABC, and Bad Judge and A to Z on NBC.
Source: THR
