After more than a decade of roses, love stories and good-old-fashioned reality TV drama, The Bachelor Australia has been cancelled by Channel 10.
Earlier this week, the network confirmed that the show—along with another of its reality series, The Masked Singer—would not be renewed for another season this year.
A spokesperson for Channel 10 told news.com.au that the reason for both shows cancellations was to give Osher Günsberg, who has hosted both since their respective premieres, a break.
“Both franchises have been hosted by television presenter extraordinaire Osher Günsberg from their inception,” they said. “The resting of The Masked Singer Australia and The Bachelor franchise will give Osher a moment to rest his voice which has worked overtime screaming ‘Take It Off’ and simultaneously dropping to a whisper to deliver the iconic line of ‘I’m sorry, but you did not receive a rose’.” They added that Osher will still narrate the upcoming season of Bondi Rescue.
While the opportunity to give Osher a break is the official line of communication, rumours the franchise was in trouble have been swirling for some time.
The Bachelor Australia Hit a Rating Slump
While it would be easy to decree this the ‘End of An Era, ‘ the reality is that views have been steadily declining for years. The show’s 11th season, which aired in late 2023 with a grand total of three bachelors, had its lowest-rated debut ever, with the premiere airing to 224,000 five-city metro viewers, with a total audience of just 319,000. For comparison, the 2019 premiere brought in 828,000 metro viewers alone.
The Bachelor Australia premiered in 2013 with Tim Robards as the titular leading man. He was followed by the controversial Blake Garvey in season 2, and Sam Wood in season 3. In 2015, Sam Frost became Australia’s first-ever Bachelorette. For the first few seasons, the franchise was truly a part of the zeitgeist and each finale raked in over 1 million views. While some more recent seasons have managed to cut through the news cycle in a positive way—namely The Bachelorette 2021, which stared Brooke Blurton as the first ever bisexual lead—the show has found itself in more negative headlines than positive ones in recent years. Specifically, Channel 10 has been continuously called out for its lack of diversity.
The Bachelor Australia Controversies
In an attempt to spice up the series, in 2022 the show played host to not one bachelor, but three—all of whom were white. As Refinery29 pointed out, prior to that season the show had had seven white, male leads in its nine season run, with the only exceptions being season 2’s Garvey and season 9’s Jimmy Nicholson.
On the flip side, several non-white contestants have spoken out about feeling tokenised during their time on the show. Carlos Fang, who appeared on Georgia Love’s season of The Bachelorette, told HuffPost Australia in 2020: “I knew going on a show like The Bachelorette there would always be a ‘token’ guy. It’s your advantage because you know there’s always one person cast to represent that mix but it’s likely to be a disadvantage for the final outcome of the show. Rarely is there a person of colour standing there at the end of the season.”
Further, it’s no secret that the nature of reality television—in fact, television more broadly— has changed over the past decade. When The Bachelor Australia first launched it was, from a viewer’s perspective at least, led by a seemingly genuine man who was really looking to find love. As social media has grown, a dramatic run on a widely-watched reality show has become something of a ticket to social media stardom. Accordingly, it can at times be difficult to trust that contestants are really on the show to find a partner, making it less “reality” and less relatable. Coupled with the franchise’s choice to spruik celebrity bachelors—with Nick ‘The Honeybadger’ Cummins playing The Bachelor in season 6 and Sophie Monk The Bachelorette in season 3—this meant the show slowly lost resonance with audiences keen to see everyday people finding romance.
So while we are sure Osher does indeed need a holiday (he’s headed to Fiji, he told Dave Hughes), the reality is that The Bachelor Australia’s bitter end has been in sight for some time. The amalgamation of controversy, celebrity and a change in reality TV consumption and formatting just meant that its final death was a slow one.
Will The Bachelor Australia Ever Come Back?
While The Bachelor Australia has been cancelled for 2024, there is potential for it to return in future. However, there has been no word from Channel 10 on plans to bring it back in 2025.
The Bachelorette Australia was canned in 2022 after seven seasons and has not been brought back since.
Watch here for updates.
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