The Great American Road Trip follows seven American families in a countrywide competition. Each in their own RVs, the clans travel to various landmarks and compete in challenges. The winning family gets a prize whereas the three worst performers must take part in a second challenge. The losing group of the second contest is eliminated.
Hosted by Reno Coiller, the series premiered on Tuesday night and the families visited Springfield, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. Unfortunately not many viewers from those cities, or anywhere else, were watching.
NBC paired the debut of Road Trip with the very popular America’s Got Talent in hopes that most of Talent’s audience would tune in an hour early to watch the new show. It didn’t happen. Road Trip attracted just 4.66 million viewers and a 1.3/5 rating/share of the 18-49 demographic.
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Road Trip was handily beaten by a repeat of NCIS (10.43 million and a 1.9/7) and barely scored better than ABC’s disappointing Superstars (4.2 million and a 1.3/5). One week earlier, a repeat of NBC’s Talent attracted 8.2 million and a 2.3/8 in the same timeslot (per the ratings overnights).
The peacock network isn’t pleased with Road Trip’s performance and immediately sent it packing to a new night. The reality series will now air on Monday nights at 10pm, taking the place of Law & Order reruns. Not surprisingly, NBC is plugging the Tuesday night timeslot with encores of America’s Got Talent.
Seven more episodes of Road Trip have already been produced. Given that it’s Summer and ratings expectations are lower, it seems very likely that NBC will air the entire season.
The network is so desperate for content that they’ve already scheduled Road Trip reruns to air on Sunday nights at 7pm. Given the early numbers, that may change.
However, unless viewership picks up, there would be very little reason for NBC to renew it for a second season.
What do you think? Is the competition worth watching or just slightly less painful than driving with squabbling kids in the backseat? Should the network keep Road Trip or just cancel it already?
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