Next season will be the last for the Ellen DeGeneres Show. She’s calling it a day.
Ellen will end with 19 seasons, one short of a big 20. But they can’t make it and they know it. This season “Ellen” has been crippled by low ratings and bad press.
So DeGeneres will get a victory lap season, and then move on to new ventures. The signal was that she put her Beverly Hills mansion up for sale some time ago. She was bragging about staying at a house owned by Courteney Cox and commuting home to her estate two hours north of LA in Montecito.
DeGeneres has been plagued by scandal from last summer when it was revealed that her show’s backstage atmosphere was “toxic.” Employees were complaining and the subject of complaints. She seemed clueless while the show sank in the ratings. Guests and celebrities complained as well of poor treatment.
In the end, three producers were let go. But from September when the show returned, the ratings dropped like a rock. She’s down to 900,000 viewers per show per week. More than half the audience is long gone and not coming back.
Unclear what happens to her “Game of Games” show on NBC Primetime, also dying in the ratings, also produced by her. My guess is it’s gone.
The news of Ellen’s ending was first reported in The Hollywood Reporter.
