Home > All News > CW Kicks Tyra Banks ANTM To Deadly Friday Night Plus New Judge

22 May, 2012 at 11:38 am

CW Kicks Tyra Banks ANTM To Deadly Friday Night Plus New Judge

It’s looking like the troubled CW is not feeling the Tyra Banks ‘America’s Next Top Model‘ love so much as they’ve pushed it into the deadly Friday Night slot after Miss Banks announced the replacements for fired Nigel Barker, Jay Manuel and Miss Jay Alexander. We’re hearing there’s no talk about renewing beyond the fall either.

It was just last month when Tyra Banks fired fan favorites (and mine) Nigel Barker, Jay Manuel and Miss Jay Alexander from the CW ‘America’s Next Top Model’ in what felt like a desperate move to stop the ratings bloodbath the once hot show has seen. She kept Kelly Cutrone which just seems like a mistake since fans have not responded to her at all, and one of our sources told us, “In my opinion, Kelly has done nothing to help the show besides alienating more viewers, but she’s gotten Tyra thinking that the show needs to go with a bigger social media angle so expect to see fashion bloggers and other insiders more. She killed her talk show trying to make too many changes, and sadly she’s hellbent on doing it to this show too.”

Miss Banks announced the replacements with male model Rob Evans (above left) as the permanent third judge and Johnny Wujek (above right), the male Rachel Zoe to stars like Katy Perry and Shakira, will be the new creative consultant, guiding the models through their photoshoots. Same job as Jay Manuel, just with a different guy, but we’ll see if he can be as much a comfort to the girls as our Jay was.

Another source at the CW told us, “Fans are not responding well to the news, and there’s been no talk to renew the show past the fall if ratings don’t start improving. I think it’s a pretty desperate move that’s going to backfire on Tyra. When you’ve got a great chemistry as she had with the three, it makes no sense to kill it.”

The other major changes will be that model Rob Evans will also be taking the girls out partying which feels like a ploy to stir up drama. I’ll miss Nigel’s steady hand at the wheel, but I’m sure Evans will be used to maximum effect to try and get more fights and neurosis breaking out in the model house. For a person like Tyra who preaches self respect and being true to yourself, it seems hypocritical to have a judge trying to get personal with the girls. It looks really irresponsible, but when you’re as desperate as the producers of this show have become, logic goes out the window. Tyra also announced that fans will have a say in which model stays or goes, but I’m sure Janice Dickinson will go on a tear again that Cover Girl actually has the real say in which model gets chosen.

From what I’m hearing, don’t expect the ‘America’s Next Top Model’ that we all used to love to be around many more seasons if even another one. This whole thing feels way too desperate and the loyal fans are leaving in droves and this news won’t bring them back anytime soon. I’ve been bored to tears with this season, and Cycle 19 has been announced as the college edition, which is inspired by Tyra’s recent foray into higher education at Harvard Business School. It will include contestants across all forms of higher education, from four-year colleges to beauty schools. This sounds as bad as the ‘short girl’ cycle which went over like lead balloon.