ABC Puts the Lid on Jackie Mason and ‘Chicken Soup’ : Television: Despite its enviable time slot following highly rated “Roseanne,” the controversial sitcom lost a third of its lead-in audience and took a drubbing from critics.

You’re a programming executive at ABC and you’re wondering what to do with your new show, “Chicken Soup.” Let’s see. It’s the highest-rated new show of the season, ranking consistently in the top 15 each week.

You decide to cancel it.

That’s exactly what ABC did Tuesday, pulling the plug on the high-rated Jackie Mason-Lynn Redgrave sitcom about a romance between an Irish-Catholic woman and a Jewish man.

But the cancellation was not as far-fetched as it might seem on the surface and, in fact, came as no surprise to the show’s producers or TV industry observers. The ratings were misleading; the show was a flop.

With the most enviable time slot in television behind the top-rated “Roseanne” on Tuesday night, the audience drop-off for “Chicken Soup” was unacceptable to ABC executives. Every week, millions of “Roseanne” viewers would change the channel as “Chicken Soup” came on. Last week, “Chicken Soup” lost one-third of Roseanne’s audience--more than 7.2 million households.

Had the series been a critical success, the network might have kept it on the schedule, perhaps moving it to another time period, industry executives said. But the show had taken a drubbing from the critics and had been criticized by Jewish organizations as supporting unfair stereotypes. In addition, Mason was criticized for racial remarks he made while campaigning for New York mayoral aspirant Rudolph Giuliani.

Replacing “Chicken Soup” at 9:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, beginning Nov. 21, will be “Coach,” a second-year sitcom starring Craig T. Nelson as a college football coach.

ABC Entertainment President Robert Iger praised the show and it makers in a statement released Tuesday. But he added, “We feel obliged competitively to maximize the strength of our programming in that time period, since Tuesday night is our key night. Clearly we’re disappointed that ‘Chicken Soup’ did not fulfill that objective.”

The network’s executives were under strict orders not to discuss the cancellation Tuesday. But they had maintained since the show’s debut Sept. 12 that they were waiting to see if it would catch on.

“Chicken Soup’s” odd status of getting axed despite solid ratings--it ranks 13th among the 92 prime-time series that have aired on the four networks this season--was not unprecedented. In fact, it followed the strikingly similar circumstances of “Bridget Loves Bernie,” a 1972-73 sitcom about the romance between a Catholic woman and a Jewish man. Although that program ranked fifth for the year, attracting 39% of the audience, CBS canceled it, saying that it was losing too many viewers from “All in the Family,” which preceded it and which was drawing 53% of the audience.

ABC informed “Chicken Soup” executive producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner of the cancellation at a meeting Monday. They, in turn, notified the cast and crew.