Fox’s $50 Million Reality Series Is A Huge, Honking Failure

The Fox network — mired in a huge slump thanks to the cannibalization of singing competitions (including their own failed The X-Factor), the struggles of their sitcom blocks, and the complete and total ratings erosion of Glee — had a lot riding on Utopia. The reality show, based on the Dutch series, was expected to be a huge hit, so much so that Fox had planned on initially airing it twice a week.

The series, which is basically Big Brother meets Lord of the Flies meets Survivor, will record 15 people creating their own civilization. Once a month, one of participants will be ejected and replaced by someone new. It’s basically a reality-show mash-up, and Fox had hoped that — if it were successful enough — installments could be used to plug holes all over its schedule. If a new show fails, just throw up another night of Utopia! Voila.

That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. The two-hour premiere on Sunday fetched a 2.0 in the 18-49 demo, which is actually less than Tuesday’s installment of Big Brother (2.3). Meanwhile, the second episode of Utopia, which aired last night, cratered with a .9 in the demo and a measly 2.5 million viewers, good for fourth place among the networks, ahead of only an Arrow rerun.

Yikes.

Fox executives must be crapping themselves. A $50 million reality show designed to air at least twice a week and have a 24-hour a day livestream available to watch on the Internet has completely shat the bed in the first three days. Heather Locklear can’t even save this show now.

The bastards shouldn’t have cancelled Enlisted. KARMA IS A BITCH.

Source: TVBYTheNumbers