Channel 10 boss says The Bachelor franchise needs 'a lot of work'

A Channel 10 boss has admitted that The Bachelor and The Bachelorette will need "a lot of work" following the franchise's lowest ratings in the history of the shows.

Speaking with Mediaweek, Beverley McGarvey, the executive vice president and chief content officer for ViacomCBS Australia and New Zealand, shared her thoughts on the shows and added that they need to get the franchise back to "its glory days".

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"We’re very happy with Celebrity MasterChef and very happy with The Dog House at the back of the year. So now we need to go 'what do we do with Bachelor? Can we get it back to its glory days?'," Ms McGarvey said.

"Often with those legacy formats, there are pivots that you can make, there are things that you can do, and shows like MasterChef and The Block that have been on the air for more than a decade prove that a format can go for a long time when you carefully manage it, and sometimes it’s cyclical."

The Bachelor and The Bachelorette did not get the ratings that execs had hoped for despite Brooke Blurton starring as the show's first Indigenous and bisexual lead with the show unable to break above the 440,000 viewers mark.

It also had the lowest-rated episode in the history of The Bachelor franchise, including Bachelor in Paradise. Their seventh episode only managed to get 249,000 viewers.

Jimmy Nicholson's Bachelor finale only managed to get 629,000 metro viewers, the lowest finale ratings in the history of the show.

The season premiere was even lower at 482,000 viewers, 200,000 less than last year's Bachelor launch.

Bachelor stars speak out

Meanwhile, former Bachelor star Abbie Chatfield, who also appeared on the second-last episode of Brooke's Bachelorette season, has declared the show "dead".

She made the call during an episode of her podcast, It's A Lot, which was released the day after the Bachelorette finale.

"That was an interesting season," Abbie mused. "I loved the representation, obviously, we loved it, it was wonderful seeing all the diversity on screen."

"Do I think the franchise is dead? Yes. Because if Brooke couldn't bring back the ratings who could? If this Bachelorette [season] couldn't bring back the f***ing ratings, who could?"

Abbie noted that there was 'no reason' in particular for the show's flailing figures and refused to place the blame on anyone specific, such as the producers.

Abbie isn't the first former Bachelor star to question the future of the franchise. In an exclusive chat with Yahoo Lifestyle, Brittany Hockley and Laura Byrne shared their thoughts on why people just weren't tuning in this year.

Laura, who won Matty Johnson's heart on The Bachelor in 2017, said it was 'unfortunate' that The Bachelorette was failing to rate when Channel 10 and Warner Bros. had done a 'great job' with diverse casting.

She speculated that Aussie viewers are suffering from 'reality TV fatigue' that is only intensified by the wealth and variety offered by streaming services such as Netflix and Stan.

Britt, from Nick 'Honey Badger' Cummins' infamous Bachelor season, thinks that the Bachie franchise still has legs.

"I think people love the idea of The Bachelor still because everybody loves love. You know, everyone loves a love story and people also like the drama."

With reporting by Gillian Wolski.

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