Graham Norton made a series of seemingly foreboding comments about his new show The Neighborhood just weeks before it was pulled from the ITV primetime slot.
The presenter’s big-budget entertainment reality about real life households competing to win £250,000 was tipped to rival BBC’s The Traitors and launched to much fanfare last month.
However, amid poor reviews and plummeting ratings, ITV has brutally relegated the rest of the episodes from 9pm to the 10.45pm slot, after the evening news.
Irish star Norton appeared to hint at his initial apprehension over hosting the programme weeks before it aired.
Speaking before its launch, he admitted he agreed to meet with producers and hear their pitch, but was planning to eventually decline the hosting job.
Introducing the new show on location in the Lake District, he said: “You are the first people in the world to get a sneak peek at The Neighbourhood, and it's a show that I'm really excited to be at the helm of.”
He went on: “Anyone that knows me will know that as much as I enjoy my job, I'm also very lazy, so when the brilliant teams from Lifted Entertainment and The Garden asked me in for the pitch, I thought, well I'll do that but then I'll say no.”
Norton, who hosts the hugely popular chat show The Graham Norton Show on the BBC, said he changed his mind after learning more about the premise.
”And then as I was sitting there, I thought, ‘Oh, this is really good. I have to say yes to this,’ so here I am,” Norton recounted.
The show sees households competing in a series of games, with the most popular family winning £250,000.
It launched to 1.2 million viewers but that number dwindled to just 500,000 by the third episode.
The programme debuted in the middle of the I’m A Celebrity finale last month in a bid to attract the jungle show’s viewers.
An ITV spokesperson said: “The full box set of The Neighbourhood is now available to stream on ITVX. Additionally, the show will continue to air in an evening slot on ITV.”
Repeats of Long Lost Family and Beat The Chasers will be shown in place of The Neighborhood at 9pm on Thursday and Friday respectively.
Sources claimed the series is performing better on ITV’s streaming platform ITVX rather than terrestrial television.
The show, which was filmed in Darwin Lake Holiday Park in Matlock, Derbyshire, was given a major promotional campaign ahead of its launch.
Bosses had shared his hopes that it could rival The Traitors - which became the nation’s most-watched programme.
“The Traitors has been absolutely phenomenal in terms of the way it's attracted reality fans and people who may not normally come to reality shows,” said Ed Daggett, Development Executive at Lifted Entertainment, the company who make the show.
“Of course, we would want to come close to that sort of success.”
