Discovery Channel Cancels Dirty Jobs
Mike Rowe
There are no more Dirty Jobs.
Discovery Channel has canceled the reality show after eight seasons, creator and host Mike Rowe announced in a blog post Wednesday.
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One of the network's forerunners to Gold Rush and Deadliest Catch as a workplace reality show, the series recently drew 1.6 million viewers and a 0.5 in the 18 to 49 demographic. The show is based on a local San Francisco program called Someone's Gotta Do It!, which was hosted by Rowe, in which he famously artificially inseminated a cow using his own hands. Other tasks have included emptying and cleaning septic tanks and collecting bat guano for fertilizer.
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"A few weeks ago, I was officially informed that Dirty Jobs had entered into a new phase. One I like to call, 'permanent hiatus.' Or in the more popular industry vernacular, canceled," Rowe wrote. "My first instinct was to immediately pass the news on to you, but frankly, it's taken me a few weeks to digest. Dirty Jobs is a very personal show, and it's difficult for me to imagine a future that does not involve exploding toilets, venomous snakes, misadventures in animal husbandry, and feces from every species."
Rowe has hosted the show since its debut in 2003. Before joining Discovery, the polymath Rowe performed with the Baltimore Opera and hosted home-shopping programming on QVC.
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If his voice sounds familiar, it's because he is also currently the narrator of several other television programs, including Discovery's Deadliest Catch and Wicked Tuna and ABC's World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer.
Rowe will continue to host How Booze Built America for Discovery and can be seen as a pitchman for the Ford Motor Company in television ads.
Discovery Channel also recently canceled American Chopper. Will you miss these shows?