We’ve all dumped The Bachelor — now Ten has to

Things continue to go from bad to worse for Channel 10. Now there’s one big decision bosses are forced to make.

If The Bachelor franchise was an old Amart sofa, then its owner, Channel 10, would be pushing it out to the gutter for council kerbside collection.

The show is faded, worn-out and has accommodated too many asses.

It’s the finale of the latest series tonight. Who knew? Or more accurately … who cares?

Most of us didn’t even know this new round – which was initially scheduled to air at the end of last year but got bumped to January, out of the official ratings period – had kicked off.

It launched to 309,000 metro viewers, peaking at 478,000, its lowest premiere in franchise history. In the lead-up to tonight’s finale, about 280,000 metro viewers have been tuning in to the nightly broadcasts.

As the numbers continued to flounder with each episode, the network was quick to point out the online streaming figures – using them to pump up the lacklustre traditional ratings that are reported daily.

And Ten should be proud of these streaming statistics – it shows a lot of dedication and affection for the brand from a peculiar subset of viewers. After all, the only thing worse than watching The Bachelors on television is streaming it on a crappy internet connection that keeps buffering. You’ve gotta be a diehard fan to endure that.

A three-for-one bargain is not always a good thing.

This season of the global reality franchise was a major shake-up for what’s supposed to be one of Channel 10’s tent-pole shows. Ratings have been on a steady decline for years, with viewers growing tired of the stale format.

In a last-ditch attempt to revive it, execs decided to serve up not one bachelor but three. The Bachelor: now with three times the boredom! The end result was a trendy trio of three white blokes who all look like they own too many beige ankle sockets.

Nothing good ever comes from a three-for-one deal. I once worked at a regional Jay Jays and had to organise the big display table stacked high with slogan T-shirts. “Three for $30!” screamed the neon cardboard promo signs.

One Thursday night, I ploughed my hand through the pile and it mooshed into a half-eaten cheeseburger. This season of The Bachelors is on par with that.

Part of The Bachelor’s revamp was relocating the show to the Gold Coast. The glitz! The glamour! The glassings! To be fair, Channel 10 should’ve been awarded some kind of government incentive for bringing the most amount of culture to the glitter strip since … since … the 2022 Logies?

The only way we would’ve been interested in this relocation is if producers made all the contestants live in the old dilapidated Big Brother house at Dreamworld.

Osher’s trying his best with what he has been given.

It’s always a bad sign when networks take a TV series that would usually air over two or three months and just start rolling out episodes every night to make the nightmare end sooner.

Four episodes have been playing a week. It’s like a fire sale for damaged floor stock. “Prices are slashed! Everything must go!”

Now, after just three weeks, the series is wrapping – its presence as faint as Osher’s whisper.

The decline of The Bachelor is a global problem, right up there with the pandemic and people who FaceTime while walking on busy footpaths.

Over in the US, the latest series of the franchise premiered to just 2.96 million viewers – down from last year’s 3.54 million. That’s a fall from 6.07 million a few years earlier and a tumble from 12.55 million when it first hit screens in 2003.

So how do we fix this former juggernaut? If we commit to the council kerbside collection analogy, maybe Channel 7 should drive by Channel 10’s dead-end cul-de-sac and pinch The Bachelor out of the gutter, just like they did with The Voice when they scooped the talent show from Nine and turned it into a success.

Either way, Channel 10 needs to follow our lead and break-up with The Bachelor. After all, it’s a show about romance. And if you love someone, sometimes the best thing you can do is let them go.

Maybe they’ll return. Or maybe they’ll hook-up with Channel 7, start wearing better outfits and become more popular.

Twitter, Facebook: @hellojamesweir