The daytime talk show scene will soon be slightly less crowded, at least temporarily, as today marks the final day of filming episodes for Nick Cannon’s eponymous chat series, which has only been in existence for a single season, despite originally being set to debut back in the fall of 2020. It appears the Nick Cannon cancellation was decided upon once studio execs reportedly changed their initial plan for a short break into something more permanent.
According to Deadline, Lionsgate’s Debmar-Mercury bosses were set to put Nick Cannon on a five-week hiatus so that Cannon could attend to his other TV duties of hosting and filming Fox’s popular competition series The Masked Singer and VH1’s comedic game show Wild ‘N Out. Through that plan, the talk show’s crew would have been compensated for a single week of the hiatus.
Instead, however, it’s reported that the producer-distributor studio reversed that idea completely, and were expected to let crew members know today that the pair of episodes they’re filming will be the final ones of the series’ run, with the production being permanently shuttered. The crew will now be receiving severance pay.
Even though the syndicated series has been officially cancelled, it won’t be completely vacating the airwaves just yet. As stated above, two eps are being filmed today, and there are reportedly enough backlogged episodes for Nick Cannon to continue on and close out the current season without an early exit. Just probably don’t expect for him to speak about the most current headlines in those episodes.
While part of the issue may have been Cannon’s hectic schedule and workload, on top of his personal life as a father seven times over (with an eighth child on the way), the show’s ratings were almost definitely a bigger cause. Despite the actor and comedian’s popularity, and despite his approach to using the talk show as an emotional connection to his audience, it still currently ranks as the lowest-rated daytime talk show in syndication with a single host. (It’s 0.4 household rating average is indeed not very comforting for studio execs.)
Despite his successes elsewhere in his career, Nick Cannon's talk show has served as a spot for him to be more emotionally vulnerable and open with both his audience and his guests. It's where he openly mourned the death of his infant son Zen and shared news of his impending newborn with model Bre TIesi. It's certainly possible he could headline another talk show for a different studio in the future, should he choose to, but it'll likely depend on how this cancellation affects him in the long run.
Though Nick Cannon was first announced in 2019, with plans for it to debut the next year, the host's career was thrown in flux after he made anti-Semitic and racist remarks on his podcast Cannon Class with rapper and guest Professor Griff. At that time, he was fired by ViacomCBS (which he was not happy about), and the talk show was put on an indefinite delay. After apologies were offered and cooler heads prevailed, Cannon reteamed with ViacomCBS to bring Wild 'N Out back, and his daytime series debuted in September 2021.
For now, fans can still catch Nick Cannon on weekday mornings in syndication, so be sure to check your local listings to see when and where it plays. Otherwise, you can catch him on The Masked Singer, which just debuted its latest season on Wednesday, March 9. And for all other television needs, our 2022 TV premiere schedule will clue you in on what's heading to the small screen soon.
