Let's do a thought experiment.

You are large (300 lbs). You decide to lose the weight, and find a way
to get paid to do so, like get a TV show that will follow you around
while you lose, and you can make it a cooking/health show. One of the
terms of your contract is that you have to post regularly to a bulletin
board and be nice to the posters there. You do it for the run of the
contract, and get paid while doing so. The people who are paying you
don't feel they are getting the return on their investment they would
like, or they feel the show doesn't fit strategically with their plans.
Whatever. They decide to let the contract end. You probably feel a
little crappy about their decision, especially when you were getting
such great feedback from a few loyal viewers. So maybe you don't want
to do it anymore, since you're not being paid. Since your a little
p.o.ed about the whole deal. Thus, no reports.

My former SO worked at a wrestling league for a while. The wrestlers,
as part of their contracts, were supposed to interact with fans on the
league's message boards. When the show got cancelled and the league
folded, very few of the wrestlers remained on the message board, while
remained active, even without a league. A lot of them felt bitter about
the whole experience (a lot of work goes into TV, regardless of
content). A lot of them would have done it if they were getting paid.

Deep down, I wonder if a LC cooking show can work on a commercial
channel. It's not just about drawing an audience. LC has that. It's
about maintaining an audience. It's about lead in and follow out and
retention. If Stella gets the axe, I will believe that part of it is
that he is sandwiched between two LF shows usually ("30 Min Meals w/
Rachael Ray" on the front and "Calorie Commando" on the back). If
you're doing LF, and into cooking shows, you don't want to watch George
Stella cook fatty steaks with butter. And if you LC, you don't want to
watch the Juan-Carlos Cruz cook mac and cheese (with flour, processed
american cheese, non-fat cheddar and panko) and tiramisu (lady
fingers). Yet these two shows are even listed as related on Food TV's
site. It's like someone there said, "Well, dieting is dieting, so we'll
lump all the diet shows into an hour." Later they will ask why they get
no audience carry into Calorie Commando.

If they wanted to rationalize it, they'd stick a "Good Eats" in the
middle to transition the audience better. Or a Bob Flay show. Neither
is really LC or LF, but has stuff that's applicable one or both ways,
and could carry some audience, making the whole network better. I think
that's part of the Blaine problem on Fit. Everything else there is LF
or exercise. Doesn't build.

For an example of this working, think of NBC back in the Must See
Thursday era. Friends into something else into Seinfield into something
else into ER. They managed to get 20% of the TV's that were on to watch
Just Shoot Me and News Radio as the something elses, just to keep from
missing the starts of Seinfeld and ER.

But I think most programming execs are a little vision impared, or
they'd figure that Stella doesn't belong with Cruz. It doesn't answer
the question of whether you can keep your lead in from a normal show
into a LC (or LF) cooking show. Though Rachael Ray continues to go, but
she's not billed as LF, just as fast (though most are in the LF mold).

Hollywood

With dieters, no news is bad news.

-but you may be right