I've never been so very pleased to be proved wrong. A few months back, I wrote about Fox's new reality TV show, "Anchorwoman," which followed former bikini model and WWE star Lauren Jones' attempt at broadcast reporting in Tyler, Texas. At the time, I concluded: "There's every indication that 'Anchorwoman' -- the whole premise of which counts on the hilarity of a woman, let alone a blond, busty woman, trying to seriously deliver the news -- will be a smashing success."
Wrong! It lasted all of one airing before getting canned for drawing only 2.7 million viewers. Judging from the publicity push behind the show, Fox execs were also under the impression that the show would be a runaway hit. I'm currently picturing one of the network's incensed producers scribbling on a Post-it: "When setting up former bikini model to fail publicly, make sure she's wearing a bikini."
So -- hurray! -- maybe this depressing commentary from Fox on, as Salon's Heather Havrilesky put it, "the frivolous, idiotic nature of broadcast news" was actually too much for viewers to stomach. As Phil Rosenthal writes for the Chicago Tribune, it proves "that the limbo stick of cynicism can in fact be set too low for the American TV audience to clear."
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