It can be simpler.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $datafile = "/path/to/shows.data";
open GETSPL, "< $datafile" or die "Cannot open $datafile: $!";
my @rows = <GETSPL>;
close(GETSPL) or die $!;

delete @rows[5,3,0];
print grep {defined} @rows;
[download]

delete can take a slice, works fine. We use grep to filter out the empty slots.

After Compline,
Zaxo