Let's just call Fox Television 'Ramsay TV'

With "Hotel Hell" getting renewed, Chef Gordon Ramsay now has four television series running on Fox Television and, at times, constitutes up to almost half of the network's weeknight programming.

It was announced last week that Chef Gordon Ramsay's "Hotel Hell" had been given the green flag for a full season for next year, according to EW.com. It appears that the British culinary master has become the dominant personality on Fox Television with four shows making the rounds: "MasterChef," "Hell's Kitchen," "Kitchen Nightmares," and "Hotel Hell." If he brings over his other show from England where he goes into prisons and gives cooking tips to those working to feed the incarcerated ("Gordon Behind Bars"), he could conceivably hold down over half of Fox's primetime line-up (with reruns due to programs running in different seasons) during a given week.

So let's just call Fox Television "Ramsay TV" -- perhaps "RTV" for short -- because the chef has become synonymous with the network.

As it is, he already holds two-fifths of the weekday line-up when "Hell's Kitchen" and "MasterChef" are in season, taking up the two hour-long slots on Mondays and Tuesdays. And when the execs at Fox have decided to throw in a "Kitchen Nightmares" episode or two, his shows made up half of Fox's primetime (or a bit more).

His hit cooking competition show, "Hell's Kitchen," which will air it's Season 10 finale this week, was renewed for two more seasons.

His other hit competition series, "MasterChef," will air its Season 3 finale this week as well. It has also been renewed for another season, and it saw an increase of 12 percent during its latest season in the key adult demographic.

"Kitchen Nightmares" will premiere its sixth season on Sept. 28.

His latest hit, "Hotel Hell," where he took his idea of "Kitchen Nightmares" and used the template to do makeovers on hotels, motels, and bed-and-breakfast establishments, made its world premiere to the best ratings debut of any new show of the season. Network execs announced just prior to its season finale that the show was being renewed for full season.

Last week, with "Hell's Kitchen" and "MasterChef" winding down their seasons to place two cooks each in their respective finales, Fox Television won the night's ratings.

If Ramsay keeps adding more hit shows to Fox's roster, he'll soon be able to build Michelin restaurants in every major city of the U. S. In fact, the winner of "Hell's Kitchen" will become the executive chef of his newest restaurant in Las Vegas.

And why not stick with a formula and personality that works? Fox Television could do worse, as shows like NBC's "Stars With Stripes" and ABC's "Love In The Wild" can attest.

"Ramsay TV." It has a bit of a ring to it. Or maybe that's the sound of good cooking ringing out wherever Chef Gordon Ramsay has chosen to place his hat (and film it). Regardless, he's cooking up nothing but success with his reality shows. He, too, with his expletive-filled demands for excellence and hard-driving determination to find it in others (even if it hurts some feelings in the process), is a bona fide hit. Truth be told, it is the personality of the man behind the shows that draws the viewers in more than the content of the shows themselves. He is, after all, the common denominator.

James Hibbard at EW.com noted when it was announced that "Hotel Hell" was renewed that Chef Gordon Ramsay just might be reality television's biggest star now, even bigger than Simon Cowell.

Yeah, strike the "Fox" Fox. Let's just call it "Ramsay TV," at least for a couple days a week.

(photo credit: Allan Warren, Creative Commons)