Link (http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/cbs-cancels-the-arsenio-hall-show-1201199060/)

“The Arsenio Hall Show” has stopped production, marking the end of the host’s efforts to restart his latenight franchise in syndication.


CBS had said that the show would return for a second season, but the latenight strip was facing significant downgrades from stations and the Eye determined that the show would not be financially viable. The show was in reruns this week and will not resume production. The show’s last original seg was May 21.


CBS said in a statement: “Unfortunately, ‘The Arsenio Hall Show’ will not return for a second season; while there are many loyal fans of the show, the series did not grow its audience enough to continue. Arsenio is a tremendous talent and we’d like to thank him for all the hard work and energy he put into the show. We’d also like to thank Tribune and all our station group partners for their support of the show.”

Hall had sought to revive the success he had in the late 1980s and early ’90s with his syndie yakked. The show, a joint production of CBS and Tribune, started out with promise last September but could not maintain its early momentum and struggled with guest bookings.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/arsenio-hall-show-canceled-cbs-708295

CBS Television Distribution, which renewed Arsenio in February, had to change its mind after three station groups decided to move Arsenio to a later timeslot.
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/tv-tattle#RLomOFUXIpslkMF4.99

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/arsenio-hall-show-canceled-cbs-708295

CBS Television Distribution, which renewed Arsenio in February, had to change its mind after three station groups decided to move Arsenio to a later timeslot.
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/tv-tattle#RLomOFUXIpslkMF4.99

:faint:

It was fun to see Arsenio again in late night but I know he'll bounce back.

http://i.imgur.com/uz8CDzp.jpg (http://lunapic.com>)

Link (http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/cbs-cancels-the-arsenio-hall-show-1201199060/)

“The Arsenio Hall Show” has stopped production, marking the end of the host’s efforts to restart his latenight franchise in syndication.


CBS had said that the show would return for a second season, but the latenight strip was facing significant downgrades from stations and the Eye determined that the show would not be financially viable. The show was in reruns this week and will not resume production. The show’s last original seg was May 21.


CBS said in a statement: “Unfortunately, ‘The Arsenio Hall Show’ will not return for a second season; while there are many loyal fans of the show, the series did not grow its audience enough to continue. Arsenio is a tremendous talent and we’d like to thank him for all the hard work and energy he put into the show. We’d also like to thank Tribune and all our station group partners for their support of the show.”

Hall had sought to revive the success he had in the late 1980s and early ’90s with his syndie yakked. The show, a joint production of CBS and Tribune, started out with promise last September but could not maintain its early momentum and struggled with guest bookings.
I don't usually watch it because it's not the kind of quests I like. I'm a white 59 year old female and I don't like all th rap and hip hop artists that are on there.

I don't usually watch it because it's not the kind of quests I like. I'm a white 59 year old female and I don't like all th rap and hip hop artists that are on there.


Same here. Rarely had anyone I wanted to see on this show. Bad booking on their part, though I do hate it when networks renege on deals.

I think part of Arsenio's problem w/ his new show is that his time has sort of passed. If you're under the age of say, 30, you may not be young enough to remember Arsenio's original show back in the early '90s. Outside of his brief stint as host of the new Star Search and his appearance on Celebrity Apprentice, Arsenio Hall has pretty much been irrelevant on the pop culture radar for at least, the past 10 years.

Arsenio's original show worked because it was on during the tail end of Johnny Carson's run on The Tonight Show. Arsenio was pretty much, the hipper, fresher alternative. Now, Arsenio was pretty much just another guy w/ a show since TV is flooded w/ numerous late night talk shows. People like Jimmy Fallon and even George Lopez when did his TBS show are now pretty much doing the similar "late night party" type of talk show that Arsenio mastered.

I think what also killed Arsenio's new show was that he really couldn't get a lot of good, A-list guests (again, in part because of the increased competition) like on his old show. I hate to say this, but it kind of gave people the impression his show was too "niche" (or dare I say, too "black", and thus, not "mainstream" enough). I'm surprised that Arsenio didn't try to put his show on cable like say BET, TVOne, Centric, etc. instead of the virtually style first-run syndication model.

well here in philly it came on at a bad time. 11pm which is the same time as local news

I think part of Arsenio's problem w/ his new show is that his time has sort of passed. If you're under the age of say, 30, you may not be young enough to remember Arsenio's original show back in the early '90s. Outside of his brief stint as host of the new Star Search and his appearance on Celebrity Apprentice, Arsenio Hall has pretty much been irrelevant on the pop culture radar for at least, the past 10 years.

Arsenio's original show worked because it was on during the tail end of Johnny Carson's run on The Tonight Show. Arsenio was pretty much, the hipper, fresher alternative. Now, Arsenio was pretty much just another guy w/ a show since TV is flooded w/ numerous late night talk shows. People like Jimmy Fallon and even George Lopez when did his TBS show are now pretty much doing the similar "late night party" type of talk show that Arsenio mastered.

I think what also killed Arsenio's new show was that he really couldn't get a lot of good, A-list guests (again, in part because of the increased competition) like on his old show. I hate to say this, but it kind of gave people the impression his show was too "niche" (or dare I say, too "black", and thus, not "mainstream" enough). I'm surprised that Arsenio didn't try to put his show on cable like say BET, TVOne, Centric, etc. instead of the virtually style first-run syndication model.
I loved the original too. Now it looks like it was getting stale.

They only cancelled his show because he is black

Lol lol lol

They only cancelled his show because he is black

Lol lol lol
I don't think so. It was the ratings.

I think part of Arsenio's problem w/ his new show is that his time has sort of passed. If you're under the age of say, 30, you may not be young enough to remember Arsenio's original show back in the early '90s. Outside of his brief stint as host of the new Star Search and his appearance on Celebrity Apprentice, Arsenio Hall has pretty much been irrelevant on the pop culture radar for at least, the past 10 years.

Arsenio's original show worked because it was on during the tail end of Johnny Carson's run on The Tonight Show. Arsenio was pretty much, the hipper, fresher alternative. Now, Arsenio was pretty much just another guy w/ a show since TV is flooded w/ numerous late night talk shows. People like Jimmy Fallon and even George Lopez when did his TBS show are now pretty much doing the similar "late night party" type of talk show that Arsenio mastered.

I think what also killed Arsenio's new show was that he really couldn't get a lot of good, A-list guests (again, in part because of the increased competition) like on his old show. I hate to say this, but it kind of gave people the impression his show was too "niche" (or dare I say, too "black", and thus, not "mainstream" enough). I'm surprised that Arsenio didn't try to put his show on cable like say BET, TVOne, Centric, etc. instead of the virtually style first-run syndication model.very well said i watched the sshow one time and it seemed to me that he was just trying too hard to recapture the past and it just did not work for pretty much the reasons that you discribed

https://twitter.com/YNB/status/472536340689461248

Brown tweeted her sadness at Arsenio Hall’s cancelation, pointing out that she had only been invited to talk shows hosted by minorities (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/02/with-arsenio-hall-out-late-night-becomes-all-white-and-male-and-so-what.html). But she’s not blaming the late-night hosts (https://twitter.com/YNB/status/472555536680886272) of the other shows. She says the bookers are to blame (https://twitter.com/YNB/status/472554260907839490).
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/tv-tattle#0jrkfWBbBZtiUhie.99

I don't think so. It was the ratings.


I know, I was joking

http://paulharrisonline.blogspot.com/2013/09/heres-whats-wrong-with-arsenio.html

I want to like Arsenio Hall. He can be personable and funny, but his return to late night television is already disappointing. I try not to judge anyone on the basis of their debut, so I've waited until seeing two of Arsenio's new shows to arrive at the conclusion that it's not working.

Actually, it would probably have been fair to judge him after Monday night alone, considering this wasn't his first late night dance -- the guy did the job for five years (1989-94) and hasn't changed the formula one bit. That's the problem. Moreover, the writing has been incredibly lame, which is bad news for a staff that had weeks to work up some special material for Arsenio's re-premiere.

The late night landscape is different than what it was when he went off the air 19 years ago. There are now so many shows on so many networks that Arsenio has to be truly great to get people to tune away from the others. I find myself deciding which shows to watch -- scratch the word "watch" and replace it with "record" -- based not on who the hosts are, but who the guests are, and Arsenio's staff will have to book some very interesting people to sit in his cushy chairs to get me to set the DVR for his hour. It's not enough to be yet another host with yet another couch and yet another house band.

He'll also have to make the show less black. I don't mean that I won't watch a black host and/or black guests. But Arsenio seems to be going out of his way to make his new show race-oriented, and not in a good way. Monday night in his monologue, he joked that only a black man would not show up for work for 19 years and still expect his job to be waiting for him when he comes back. Not only is that not funny, but why would he want to perpetuate that stereotype? On his second night, he ran a recorded piece where he went around the office checking to see if every staff member had enough "soul," and if they came off as too white, they were "fired." Also not funny.

For Arsenio to succeed in syndication, he'll need a broad audience of both black and white viewers. If he alienates the latter, he'll have no chance. Ellen DeGeneres did not get to be as popular as she is by making her lesbianism the ongoing theme of her talk show. George Lopez didn't do Latino stereotype jokes every night (actually, he did, which is one of the reasons his show is no longer on the air).

Arsenio also has to recognize that:
no one cares that he's friends with Eddie Murphy and Magic Johnson;
what he did on TV 19 years ago is irrelevant today;
a "surprise" appearance by Paula Abdul does not qualify as a "big get";
Chris Tucker doesn't get booked on other shows not because he's black, but because he's a terrible guest;
bad prop comedy (like his opening night bit about items from his 1994 time capsule) is better left in the hands of Carrot Top;
sitting with Snoop Dog/Lion/Giraffe and making pot jokes has not only gotten old, but has been done to death when Snoop appeared with Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon -- multiple times.

Those two names bring up another point. Both Jimmys (Jimmies?) understand the value of social media and incorporate it into their shows almost every night. Witness Monday's reveal of Kimmel's fiery twerk fail viral video that pranked the entire internet, or Fallon's musical-parody segments that get tons of exposure on YouTube. Arsenio seems to be making no effort in that regard -- a critical error for a modern TV talk show.

One last point, and it's about Arsenio's competition. While it's standard procedure for talk shows to feature celebs promoting shows on other networks, it seemed odd to me that David Letterman had Arsenio as his prime guest last Friday and that Jay Leno appeared in the opening sketch on Arsenio's first show! This is their direct competition -- why would they help him draw viewers away from their own shows?

This is so alien to me because it would never occur in my medium, radio. In all the years on the air, I've never considered interviewing the new morning guy on Z107 or the new afternoon team on Buzz Radio. Hell, I can't even get promotion from the radio stations my own show is on!

The only time I've done anything close to that was in the late eighties, when I was the morning man on WCXR, the classic rock station in Washington, DC. The Hard Rock Cafe was about to open a franchise downtown, and they invited me and my team to do our show from that venue. Someone with a sense of humor also invited Dennis Owens, the legendary morning guy at WGMS, the classical music station, to do his show from there on the same day.

He agreed, then called me with a suggestion: I should wear a tuxedo, and he would wear a leather biker's jacket and jeans. Though I'd never spoken to Dennis before, I thought it was a terrific idea, and we both had a great time that morning on our respective shows, and in a couple of crossover segments where we appeared on each other's show for a few minutes. Dennis made me introduce a concerto by some hard-to-pronounce Russian composer (nailed it!) and I had him talk about the lasting appeal of Led Zeppelin. We capped the thing off at 10am by going outside and christening the Hard Rock's new venue by smashing acoustic guitars into the front wall, Pete Townshend-style.

It worked because of the juxtaposition of formats -- Dennis and I didn't play any of the same music, discuss any of the same topics, or share any of the same audience, so it wasn't like I had done a cross-promotion with a direct competitor whose audience might start listening to him instead of me.

But Arsenio, Dave, and Jay do compete directly. Maybe they agreed to it because Jay's losing "The Tonight Show" again in five months and feels no loyalty to NBC, and Dave's been around and had the clutch in for so long that he just doesn't care about much anymore.

Or maybe they're both savvy enough to recognize that Arsenio's time came and went two decades ago, and this attempt at grabbing the brass ring a second time -- in a much more crowded marketplace -- isn't much of a threat after all.

Addendum: Arsenio got a huge curiosity tune-in rating Monday night, but the numbers dropped 30% Tuesday night.POSTED AT 3:09 PM

http://www.tdogmedia.com/2014/05/arsenio-hall-canceled.html

So, what went wrong?

It’s pretty simple – with a 0.3 rating, Hall’s show was not able to connect to a generation of younger viewers like he did during his 1989-94 heyday. Another problem was the lack of A-list guests the show was unable to attract. Even competing Queen Latifah’s show – in daytime no less – had a easier time booking more well-known guests.

Another problem were the skits – many of them, especially early in the revival’s run, were not funny. Arsenio then started booking reality show guests from Real Housewives of Atlanta and Basketball Wives – “celebrities” most viewers who never watched those shows didn’t care about. Hey Arsenio, not everyone shares your love of reality TV (outside of Survivor, yours truly steers clear of the genre.) Plus, showing clips of those puke shows was an open invitation to turn the dial.

Even worse, much of Hall’s material centered on dated race jokes – and it was dreadful. For example, a recent sketch titled The Arsenio Hall Television Exchange Program, exploiting TV’s racial divide (which actually is less pronounced now than it was in the ’90s when UPN and The WB were around.) It featured two races of people who never watched a TV show – one white and one black (I guess they forgot Asians, Hispanics, and mixed-race people existed.)

The skits were like joking about how black people don’t listen to WGN Radio or The Loop or how white people have no rhythm. These jokes weren’t even funny in 1985. The segment was easily the worst piece of television to air this year.

And it appeared Hall’s interviewing skills had not improved from his last late-night effort. It was no doubt, a fawnfest.

But the main reason Arsenio didn’t succeed was too much competition from other late-night shows, notably on the broadcast networks and on cable where it is a crowded field.

A local late-night effort from Michael Essany called Seven On Ridge in 2012 suffered from some of the same problems Arsenio did (http://www.tdogmedia.com/2012/12/essany-pulls-plug-on-seven-on-ridge.html), with his Gary, Ind.- produced show lasting just a month on the air (though a clearance on a little-watched Chicago station didn’t exactly help its cause.)

Where I live, Arsenio comes on at 11:30 which is in direct competition with Letterman, Fallon and Kimmel.

LOL@TVFactFan saying Arsenio was cancelled because he's black hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. I agree even though you said you were just playing. There hasn't been a lot of black talk show hosts that have lasted on tv for a long time. Arsenio lasted for 5 years the first time but i knew he wasn't gonna last that long the second time around. I'm glad he gave black celebrities exposure because they wasn't getting exposure on white talk shows. Why should Arsenio have to try to go mainstream by trying to appeal to younger people and having white celebrities on his show? He appealed to blacks his age and blacks my age and that's the right thing to do. I'm glad to say he's from my hometown Cleveland, Ohio and he's made me proud that a black man can grow up poor and become rich and successful and live in Los Angeles which is a nice city. Most black men from Cleveland haven't been successful and rich. So i'm glad to hear about black celebrities from Cleveland that have done well that used to be poor. Steve Harvey, Halle Berry, Terrence Howard, r&b group Levert(RIP Gerald and Sean), Paula Jai Parker, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Jazmin Lewis, Kym Whitley are also from Cleveland and i'm happy for their success.

http://paulharrisonline.blogspot.com/2013/09/heres-whats-wrong-with-arsenio.html



http://www.tdogmedia.com/2014/05/arsenio-hall-canceled.html
Wow!! Those are strong facts. I hope he comes back but in a differant genre.

http://www.thewrap.com/dont-count-arsenio-hall-out-yet-late-night-host-fielding-multiple-offers/

Arsenio Hall’s (http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?664283-Arsenio-Hall-canceled) manager claims that there’s been interest in him relaunching his talk show (http://www.lipstickalley.com/showthread.php?t=706842), but no cable network would admit being interested.
Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/tv-tattle/2#ZZQyxW0ph8Qkgoc2.99

Wow!! Those are strong facts. I hope he comes back but in a differant genre.

I don't agree w/ the argument about Arsenio's apparently poor interviewing skills being a problem w/ his new show. By that logic, then Jimmy Fallon, who is even worse when it comes to interviewing people in a mature, non-overly fawning manner, shouldn't have a talk show either.

I think besides what I've already said or posted, Arsenio's problem was that he really couldn't appeal towards a young audience (something that Johnny Carson couldn't do back in 1989) anymore in part because lets face it, Arsenio is pushing 60 (even though, admittedly, Arsenio looks pretty damn good for his age). So all that was left was Arsenio targeting the urban crowd, which would make much more sense if he was on something like BET or TVOne. What doesn't help is that Arsenio was still on first-run syndication, which as I said before is much different now than it was back in 1989.

I think also didn't do enough to adapt or change w/ the times in regards to distributing and promoting his show. It was as if he wanted to do his '90s show, but w/ C-list stars and increased competition in late night. I've heard the argument (http://www.futureproducers.com/forums/music-genres/rap-hip-hop-r-b/arsenio-cancelled-478428/2/#post49802541) that part of the reasons why Arsenio's old show worked when it did because Arsenio was for lack of a better word, the "gatekeeper" for fresh new artists (continuing the tradition of Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark). But now, places like YouTube is pretty much the new "gatekeeper" for such a thing.

I have read each of the posts here about why Arsenio's talk show was canceled and I gotta tell ya, it's not as complicated and in-depth as a lot of you are making it seem. Arsenio Hall simply does NOT have a stage presence. He laughs too much at his own jokes and quips (often while he's telling them) and he lacks that special Star Power that a lot of famous and successful entertainers have. Arsenio Hall's delivery, presence and overall appearance has never been anything else but average and nothing special. That's not good enough to build a comeback on.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Arsenio-Hall-Canceled-1082764.aspx?

Turns out Arsenio didn’t have a regular showrunner, he struggled to book big-name guests (other than Prince), he dropped 60% in the 18-49 demo and he was losing the 11-midnight timeslot across the country.

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/tv-tattle#7gyzJPu7rM3jhMob.99

I only found out recently that he was even back on the air. I think he got cancelled because he dosent have the big following he had back in the early 90's.

The main problem for me was the odd time slots the show aired in. In my area it played at 2 am and I'm already snoozing away at that time.

Link (http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/cbs-cancels-the-arsenio-hall-show-1201199060/)

“The Arsenio Hall Show” has stopped production, marking the end of the host’s efforts to restart his latenight franchise in syndication.


CBS had said that the show would return for a second season, but the latenight strip was facing significant downgrades from stations and the Eye determined that the show would not be financially viable. The show was in reruns this week and will not resume production. The show’s last original seg was May 21.


CBS said in a statement: “Unfortunately, ‘The Arsenio Hall Show’ will not return for a second season; while there are many loyal fans of the show, the series did not grow its audience enough to continue. Arsenio is a tremendous talent and we’d like to thank him for all the hard work and energy he put into the show. We’d also like to thank Tribune and all our station group partners for their support of the show.”

Hall had sought to revive the success he had in the late 1980s and early ’90s with his syndie yakked. The show, a joint production of CBS and Tribune, started out with promise last September but could not maintain its early momentum and struggled with guest bookings.
I wonder what he'll do now. He had said before that he's really only a talk show host because even though the movie Commin to America was a hit, he fails at everything else.

Not surprised. Look what happened to Ricki Lake's recent talk show. It failed. Sometimes, second time isn't the charm.

This is sort of a microcosm (http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?645300-Shows-that-haven-t-been-seen-anywhere-in-years&p=5866390&viewfull=1#post5866390) of why Arsenio's second talks show didn't work as well:
The disadvantage to a 30-minute jump on Carson was that Thicke (or any challenger) was never going to have a gotta-see guest that hadn't appeared with Johnny first. So, when the 30 minutes are up, the channels get changed to catch Carson's monologue and the last half of Thicke goes in the dumpster.

Arsenio's going to have the same problem going on before Leno (and later Fallon), Letterman and Kimmel. But head-to-head, the challengers would do even worse.

The main problem for me was the odd time slots the show aired in. In my area it played at 2 am and I'm already snoozing away at that time.

I think that I said previously that Arsenio and his people should've understood or realized going in that the first-run syndicated market is a lot different now than it was when he was doing his original talk show. I don't entirely understand why he didn't try to do his show on a cable channel, where you have a stable/fixed timeslot and more guaranteed advertising.

I mean, when exactly was the last time that somebody tried to do a late night talk show/variety show in first-run syndication (maybe roughly 1998)? It seemed like Arsenio was trying to "recreate" his early '90s talk show and hoped that he could coast on as much nostalgia as possible (w/o really doing more to change the formula).

Not surprised. Look what happened to Ricki Lake's recent talk show. It failed. Sometimes, second time isn't the charm.

I think part of Ricki Lake's problem is that perhaps people expected or wanted it to be like her '90s talk show, which was more hip, edgy, and youth-oriented.