Ricki Lake’s talk show canceled after only one season; who’s next?

Not even “Dancing with the Stars” could ultimately revive the daytime talk career of Ricki Lake. Despite at one point generating some pretty great publicity, the new “Ricki Lake Show” just could not generate the viewership necessary in syndication to actually earn a second season.

Through the end of last year, Lake was only ahead of shows hosted by Trisha Goddard and Jeremy Kyle when it came to total viewers, and she had a significantly greater amount of name recognition than either one of them. When you consider that “Anderson Live!” was canceled this season despite drawing more than 400,000 more viewers, you knew that the writing was very much on the wall here.

In a statement, here is what Stephen Brown, the executive vice-president of programming & development for Twentieth Television (who producers the show), had to say:

“While we are proud of the topics the program tackled including childhood obesity, life-after the military, divorce, and addiction we were simply not able to breakthrough the crowded talk show marketplace.”

Lake was probably hurt the most by the simultaneous launch of Katie Couric’s own talk show, which drew nearly three times the total viewers and has already been renewed for another season.

So who’s next on the chopping block? We have to believe that Jeff Probst will probably be voted off the talk show island soon, as his show is actually drawing a smaller rating in the W 25-54 demographic that many talk shows look for (even if it is averaging slightly more in terms of total viewers). The good news is that he at least still has “Survivor” going strong.

What’s your reaction to Ricki Lake’s cancellation? If you want to read some more positive news about the “Katie” renewal, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: 20th TV