Osbournes: Reloaded Pulled From Television Stations

Several television stations across the U.S. didn't air Tuesday's premiere episode of Osbournes: Reloaded, the new variety/reality show starring Ozzy and his foul-mouthed family, but it still finished a distant second in the evening's ratings.

The premiere wasn't aired by more than a dozen Fox affiliates because they claimed its adult-oriented content and use of profanity were inappropriate as a follow-up to ratings winner American Idol.

The audience for Osbournes: Reloaded was less than half of Idol's despite the karaoke show being extended 25 minutes into the shortened Reloaded's time slot in an effort to dissuade viewers from changing the channel at the end of the hour.

"I just felt it was not keeping with community standards," David Cavileer, the general manager of WPGX Fox 28 in the anything-goes-at-spring-break hot spot of Panama City, Fla., said in an email to the local News Herald newspaper.

His station didn't air Osbournes: Reloaded after he saw a six-minute preview. The program was replaced by a Simpsons episode.

"This is more of an MTV thing," Cavileer said of Osbournes: Reloaded.

"They are reporting it to be a variety show. There is worse stuff than this out there. This show in my market does not serve my public in Panama City. I did not feel it was appropriate."

Some of the stations that didn't air the show in its original time slot broadcast it later at night, when the young Clay Aiken and Jordin Sparks wannabes were presumably asleep.

Enough stations aired Osbournes: Reloaded for TV critics to watch and almost universally declare it a disaster.

The Osbournes — the amusing reality show that brought Sharon, Jack and Kelly Osbourne out of the Black Sabbath frontman's shadow and into the limelight by looking at their chaotic home life — ran from 2002 to 2005. It won an Emmy Award for outstanding reality program after its first season.