After a second run at late night stardom Arsenio Hall was delivered a major blow on Friday. It was revealed back in February that CBS would be renewing the ‘Arsenio Hall Show’ for a second season, however it appears the network is backpedaling and has decided to cancel the syndicated late night talk show.
“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,” CBS said in a statement on Friday.
The statement continued “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.”
Hall himself however seems to be taking his second cancellation in history well for the most part.
“When I started this adventure with CTD and Tribune, we all knew it would be a challenge — I’m gratified for the year we’ve had and proud of the show we created. I’d like to thank everyone on my staff for rallying around me and striving to make the best show possible every night.” said Hall.
According to the Hollywood Reporter–Despite premiering to optimistic numbers, 1.5 rating with households (and, more importantly, a 1.0 rating among adults 18-49), the ratings took a dive. The talker dropped 60 percent in the key demo within its first several months. There were bright spots along the way. A visit from prince Prince saw ratings surge 56 percent in March, tying even ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel that night, but the pressure cooker of the Jimmy Fallon era late night was ultimately too much. Arsenio was further walloped in the ratings when David Letterman‘s April 3 announcement of his retirement drove up attention on CBS.
[Source] Image Credit: CBS

