'Cooking' flames out
Peacock puts fork in show
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After three days of disastrous ratings, Peacock decided to kill the show, effective immediately. Decision came just hours after an NBC email touted the skein's night-to-night ratings gain.
Thursday's fourth episode was supposed to feature a faceoff among the celebrity winners from the first three nights of the competition. Instead, the net ran repeats of "Will & Grace" and "My Name Is Earl."
Viewers then were supposed to select a winner from among the three Thursday finalists, with the results announced on a Friday episode. NBC now plans to air both the Thursday and Friday episodes of "Cooking Showdown" Saturday from 8-10 p.m., with the winner selected by those who viewed the show online.
"Cooking Showdown" was stillborn in its Monday debut, averaging a weak 2.8/7 among adults 18-49, down 20% from the underperfoming "The Apprentice." Things went from bad to worse Tuesday, with the show sinking to an embarrassing 1.1/3 in the demo opposite "American Idol."
Peacock execs wanted to see how the show did without "Idol" competish, and they got their answer Thursday morning: Not well. Wednesday's seg scored a 1.5/5 in the demo, putting it in sixth place for the hour.
Nonetheless, NBC's PR department managed to find a silver lining, noting in an email to journos that "Cooking Showdown" was "up 36% in 18-49" vs. its Tuesday perf.
Within two hours, another email from NBC PR noted "Cooking Showdown" had been pulled.
Meanwhile, another Peacock spring tryout -- the caper drama "Heist" -- also flatlined after Wednesday's seg averaged a mere 1.3/3 in the demo. Broadcast was likely the last for "Heist," with a "Dateline" sex predator special slotted for the slot next week (Daily Variety, April 10).
