‘The Arsenio Hall Show’ canceled, makes Jay Leno look silly for renewal announcement

Well, this is awkward.

Remember earlier this year, when Jay Leno stopped by “The Arsenio Hall Show” to let the late-night host know that his show was coming back for another season? Well, it turns out that this was pretty darn short-lived. It was announced today, per Variety, that the show will be canceled and will not return for another season. The CBS / Tribune production has saw its ratings decline significantly since the premiere, and there were a number of other problems reportedly including trouble with bookings and also affiliates. (The show aired on a variety of different networks, including some owned by Fox and The CW.)

Here is what was said officially 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.”

In the end, we feel pretty bad for Arsenio in that the show was meant to be his big comeback, and in some ways it was funny. There is just too many late-night fish in the sea now, and it felt very low-budget at times to the point where there was very little that could be done in order to sustain it.

This cancellation does continue an unfortunate trend of change in the late-night landscape. We’ve already see the start of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” along with “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” and David Letterman and Craig Ferguson also each announced that they will be leaving “The Late Show” and “The Late Late Show.” Finally, Chelsea Handler is signing off of her own E! program later this month.

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Photo: Arsenio Hall