The 2022-23 TV season has its first casualty.
CBS‘ dating show The Real Love Boat has been pulled from the broadcast network after four episodes. It will finish out its season on Paramount+.
The move comes after the show, an unscripted spin on the 1970s-’80s romance/comedy anthology, pulled in soft ratings numbers for its first four episodes. The Real Love Boat is CBS’ least watched primetime series of the fall, averaging a little under 1.9 million same-day viewers and a slim 0.24 rating in the key ad demographic of adults 18-49. Delayed viewing hasn’t helped much: After a week of DVR and on-demand viewing (as measured by Nielsen), the first two episodes rose to just 2.59 million viewers and a 0.3 among adults 18-49.
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Paramount+ also streams the four episodes that aired on CBS, as well as the original scripted series.
CBS will move The Amazing Race up an hour, from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET/PT, to fill the hole created by the move of The Real Love Boat. Drama repeats will run in the last hour of primetime. The move could boost The Amazing Race by putting it immediately after Survivor, where it has thrived in the past. As it stands now, TAR is down by about 18 percent in viewers versus last season in seven-day ratings.
Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O’Connell host The Real Love Boat, which brings single people together on a cruise ship in search of love matches. The series is produced by Eureka Productions and Buster Productions; the executive producers are Chris Culvenor, Paul Franklin, Wes Dening, Eden Gaha and Jay Bienstock.
Deadline first reported the news.
