Why was Hotel Hell cancelled?

Hotel Hell was cancelled after just three seasons, likely due to the combination of its declining viewership and a few other factors.

Hotel Hell, starring the notoriously sharp-tongued Chef Gordon Ramsay, was unexpectedly cancelled in the middle of its third (and now final) season in 2016.

And although there is a pretty commonly-held perception that the decline in ratings or viewership of a show are the biggest factors that contribute to its cancellation, networks usually consider a wide variety of factors before they decide to axe a show.

As a result, networks often have to venture outside of the viewership numbers.

They consider things like the show’s production cost, the availability of its stars, the show’s long-term potential, and even the network’s content strategy, in order to determine which shows will be renewed and which will be cancelled for every new season.

The factors that contributed to Hotel Hell’s cancellation

Although neither FOX nor Ramsay ever released an official statement as to why Hotel Hell was cancelled all these years ago, it is pretty evident that almost all of the above-mentioned factors could have contributed to the decision.

Ramsay had already announced that he was “done” with his other business-rescue show, Kitchen Nightmares in 2014.

But he still had a lot on his plate two years later, as he was still filming other shows like Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef Junior and Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch, alongside the last season of Hotel Hell.

And between Ramsay’s busy schedule, the show’s (likely) pricey travel budget and Hotel Hell’s slowly declining ratings, it is no wonder that Hotel Hell did not make the cut for the 2016/2017 season.

A look back at Hotel Hell’s ratings

Hotel Hell has become somewhat of a cult-classic among Gordon Ramsay fans over the years and the series has earned favorable reviews, with an audience score of 7.3 on Metacritic and an overall 7.1 out of 10 score on IMDb.

But the show’s ratings and viewership had definitely declined quite drastically by its third season, as outlined below:

An episode summary for Hotel Hell

All in all, Hotel Hell ran for three seasons between 2012 and 2016 and aired 22 episodes, as follows:

How many hotels did Ramsay save?

The actual success rate for shows like Hotel Hell always seems to be lower than expected.

But even though Ramsay’s efforts were not enough to keep all of the lodging establishments featured on the show open, the show at least gave most of these hotels, motels, inns and lodges some much-needed publicity (and in most cases, a few necessary upgrades).

However, by the end of Hotel Hell’s third season, Ramsay had visited a total of 20 different lodging establishments all throughout the United States, over the course of the show’s 22 episodes.

Both Juniper Hill Inn and Town’s Inn were featured in special double-episodes), and just over half of these businesses are still open, as of the beginning of 2023.

Will Hotel Hell ever come back?

Under regular circumstances, it would be fairly safe to assume that any series which has not aired a new episode in seven years will probably not be returning to the small screen. However, Hotel Hell is may just be the exception to this rule.

Now that Gordon Ramsay’s other United States-based business-rescue show, Kitchen Nightmares has just been revived for an eighth season after a nine-year hiatus, it seems like almost anything is possible within the Gordon Ramsay Cinematic Universe.

And since this accomplished celebrity chef recently partnered with FOX Entertainment to take his production company, Studio Ramsay Global, across the pond to “develop, produce and distribute culinary and lifestyle programming for FOX, Tubi and global markets” it really seems like Ramsay now has the power to bring shows back how and when he pleases.

This means that if the audience’s demands persists, it may just be a matter of time before Hotel Hell is also rebooted.