Channel 10 executive begs viewers to give The Real Love Boat ‘a chance’

Channel 10’s dreams of a new dating franchise to replace The Bachelor rose on an iceberg when The Real Love Boat premiered last week to just 215,000 subway viewers.

The flop series, hosted by Darren McMullen, later sank to the bottom of the ocean when only 129,000 viewers tuned in for episode two.

The network is now desperately trying to downplay the show’s failure, with one executive begging viewers to give it “a chance.”

The program follows a group of singles in search of romance as they cruise the Mediterranean on a luxury passenger ship.

Dan Monaghan, a senior vice president of Paramount, owner of Channel 10, said: mumbrella the show is ‘good’ despite viewers tuning in en masse.

“Clearly it didn’t hit the way we’d hoped, right off the gate,” Monaghan said.

After launching in the premiere timeslot of 7:30pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the show has been pushed back an hour to 8:30pm after ratings flopped.

Monaghan confirmed that the show will continue at 8:30 p.m. for now to avoid competition from Nine’s ratings hit The Block.

Monaghan, who was filmed earlier this year on Princess Cruises’ Regal Princess as it sailed across the Mediterranean, defended the show as “visually stunning” and admitted he was surprised by the low numbers.

“I think the show is good, we didn’t put on a bad show, it just didn’t fit the way we wanted or the way we expected it to,” he said.

The viewers who did tune in to the show’s launch were furious in their feedback.

“Ten minutes later and I see an iceberg. Terrible,” one tweeted, while another added, “Love Boat? More like the Bogan Titanic.’