According to an article published in Le Journal de Montreal on November 4, Le Banquier has been cancelled by TVA after 12 seasons on the air.

The reason for the cancellation is purely economic. Despite many sponsorships from major local and national brands - which supplied the show with many of its famous handouts - the show was not profitable. The current season, the show's 12th, is expected to operate at a loss of $1 million Canadian.

Hostess Julie Snyder is expected to remain with TVA to potentially work on other projects. Her production company, Les Productions J, now has one show remaining on the network - La Voix, which is the French Canadian version of NBC's The Voice.

Le Banquier first aired in January 2007, and will likely leave the air without having ever crowned a $500,000 winner. Despite that, only about seven contestants in the show's history have gone away with a "blue" amount, which would subsequently be negated by thousands of dollars' worth of sponsor prizes.

Personally, I thought it was a matter of time before the show met its end. Despite an average of 1.6 million viewers per season, the show was significantly in the red, profit-wise. In the world of television, operating at a loss can effectively spell the end of your show, and I guess TVA didn't want a money-losing program on their schedule anymore.

The 12th season will end in February 2017, which is a bit unusual, given that Le Banquier's seasons usually end in December with the Christmas episode. As for my recaps, I've decided to take the season off because the show felt like a chore to watch. It was 90 minutes' worth of melodrama, sob stories, overly drawn-out case openings, constant themed episodes - they haven't aired a "normal" episode in years - and the aforementioned handouts. However, I will return to recap the last five episodes of Le Banquier, so stay tuned for that.

That's a shame but not unexpected. Given Le Banquer is by far the most expensive game show production in Canada, they were almost certainly going to axe it as soon as it became unprofitable.