Ratings Bubble Report: Can ‘The Biggest Loser’ stop shedding viewers?

It was really not that long ago that “The Biggest Loser” was the best thing that NBC had going for it. The ratings were pretty strong, and there was even a “30 Rock” joke about the network was devoting almost all of its resources to it versus everything else on their declining network.

However, times have changed since then. “The Voice” really helped to revive everything for them, and now there are other hits like “The Blacklist,” “Blindspot,” and anything executive-produced by Dick Wolf. The show is no longer a semiannual event, and the ratings are a shadow of what they once were. Now, the series seems to be resorting more towards casting relatively familiar faces (Richard Hatch is a good example) in hopes of getting more people to watch.

Is there still hope for the series to have a future beyond this current season? That’s what we are here to investigate today in the latest chapter of our Ratings Bubble Report series.

The good news – This is the perfect schedule-filling show for NBC. The network needs something to throw on the air between seasons of “The Voice”; last year it was “The Celebrity Apprentice,” and this year we’ve got this. If “Celebrity Apprentice” airs in the fall, then you will need something for this spot. While it doesn’t seem like you are going to get anywhere close to a 2.0 rating anymore for this show in the 18-49 demographic, maybe the network likes the cost and the ratings of this show enough to keep it over trying to introduce something new against “The Bachelor” and everything else airing on Mondays.

The bad news – The show hasn’t even had it rough yet on Mondays and the ratings are low. Tonight it faces “Scorpion,” “Lucifer,” and “The Bachelor” alongside the return of “Jane the Virgin.” That’s a ton of competition. Also, the downward trend for this series is extremely noticeable.

Why has “The Biggest Loser” shed so many viewers? We’ll say that the show had a PR nightmare courtesy of what happened with Rachel winning the 15th season of the show with a BMI that classified her as underweight. Also, the “Glory Days” season that followed was a poor attempt at shaking up the format with all one-time athletes. The appeal of this show is normal Americans fighting to get their lives together, and people viewers can relate to. “Glory Days” was down over 35% from Rachel’s season in the demo, which is pretty disastrous. Meanwhile, this current season “Temptation Nation” is down so far around 9%; that’s a much more manageable number, but the ratings were already pretty low.

Renewal odds – Moderate. If NBC didn’t have this hole in their schedule, we’d be dooming this show more than we are. As it is, though, they need something to fill this spot until “The Voice” returns, and at least “The Biggest Loser” brings something to the table. However, we’ll lower the odds to “low” if the show starts to average lower than a 1.0 rating the rest of the season.