Fox has announced that the third season of Hell's Kitchen, the culinary boot camp reality series hosted by foul-mouthed British chef Gordon Ramsay, will premiere on Monday, June 25 at 8PM ET/PT.
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Due to the solid ratings that last summer's Hell's Kitchen edition delivered, Fox had already announced the show's third season renewal last July (before Hell's Kitchen 2 even ended) and stated that Hell's Kitchen 3 would air as part of a Summer 2007 Fox programming schedule that would also include So You Think You Can Dance 3, whose third season renewal had also been part of the same July renewal announcement.
However early last month, Fox Entertainment president Peter Liguori unexpectedly told reporters attending January's Television Critics Association's Winter Press Tour that the network was now considering having Hell's Kitchen's third edition -- set to have begun production last month -- air as part of a revamped Spring 2007 Fox Thursday night lineup.
The surprising idea was apparently short-lived -- by the end of the month, Fox had confirmed that rather than attempting to air Hell's Kitchen 3 against the likes of Survivor, Ugly Betty, CSI, and Grey's Anatomy, it will fill its Spring 2007 Thursday nights with movie broadcasts and mostly repeat episodes of Nanny 911 and Trading Spouses.
Joining Hell's Kitchen 3 on Fox's summer reality programming lineup will be Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg's new On The Lot reality series, which will receive an Idol-fueled launch on Wednesday, May 16, and -- as originally announced last summer -- the third season of So You Think You Can Dance, which will premiere on Thursday, May 24.
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Hell's Kitchen, an American adaptation of a similar British reality series that was hosted by Ramsay, averaged slightly over seven million weekly viewers throughout its Summer 2005 first season, winning its time period among Adults 18-49, Adults 18-34 and Teens. The show continued its success last summer, prompting Fox to order an American adaptation of Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay's other British series, last month.
While Kitchen Nightmares was scheduled to production this month, Fox has yet to announce when it might premiere. The network has also not yet announced a premiere date for When Women Rule the World, a new reality series that Fox had previously announced would debut sometime this spring.
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio