Ryan Lochte rejected ‘The Bachelor,’ ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ but E! show tanks

Ryan Lochte must have thought that he was doing a pretty cool thing in launching his own reality franchise in “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?”, but after looking at the ratings for the season premiere, we’re starting to think that the notorious swimmer would have been better off following the lead of someone else.

Overall, the series premiere of the show (despite coming off of a Kardashian interview with Ryan Seacrest) drew just a 0.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic despite a pretty strong promotional campaign, and just over 800,000 viewers. While these numbers are not necessarily abysmal for E! as a network, it’s still fair to say that this marks a disappointment for a network that was hoping for a smash hit.

While we’re not sure that Lochte knew the premiere numbers at the time of the E! upfront this week (or if he even cares), he told E! News that he actually picked this show over a couple of other reality franchises:

“They asked me if I would [do The Bachelor] or Dancing With The Stars … And I was like, ‘why don’t I just have my own reality TV show, and just put it all in there myself?’ Do it my own way.”

We don’t think that Lochte would have seriously ever been named “The Bachelor,” since the show really likes to cast people from within the franchise in spite of all the hype surrounding other participants over the years. However, wouldn’t the ballroom have been a perfect venue for him? We still wish that he and Michael Phelps could compete on the same season.

Are you surprised at all about these numbers? If you want to read our full review of the “Dancing with the Stars” episode from Monday night, you can do so over here.

Photo: ABC