But then most of ABC Studios comedies aren’t particularly funny. Maybe if they’d get out of the way of showrunners and let them do their own thing and respect their visions, they’d have some that were.

Anyhow, I have started a facebook group, “Save Samantha Who?” Please join and invite your friends to join as well.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=84473198651

Gonna miss this show

So Private practice is the only sophomore scripted show left on ABC.

What’s frustrating is that ABC is more than willing to pick up other networks’ garbage that has NO shot of being successful (Scrubs, Surviving Suburbia, New Adventures of Old Christine) but don’t want to give the effort to build up their own shows that actually have potential. They said in the press conference today that they’d still take Old Christine if CBS didn’t renew it. Yet they won’t give SW? a real chance.

The problem with this argument is that ABC didn’t really give SW? a chance to do that. It aired two back-to-back episodes in December on Monday without Dancing. They drew decently, around 6 mil.

The problem with the Thursday slot was that SW? WAS piggybacking on another show, but it was the load of garbage called “In the Motherhood.” So it was a negative piggyback. We’ll never know what would have happened had ABC put it in the first half of that hour instead of the second, where it was against the “Survivor” Tribal Council, etc. I have no doubt that the numbers would have been better had they placed it before, rather than after the wretched ITM.

The difference is it does not take over the TV here

We still have plenty of other shows which do just as well if not better that the reality stuff, Eastenders, Corination Street, Emmerdale, The Bill etc etc

When new shows arrive they run for an season (each week without any stupid breaks) and then a decision will be made then if the show will return or not.

Don’t you know that both DTWS and Idol got their start in the UK???

They get insane numbers because its confort food for most people right now. They don’t want anything bleak or something that is not a sure thing i.e. canned in two years.

To build successful new shows, you have got to have more than 3 true hits (ok, 4 if you count Lost’s demos if not in the overall ratings) to schedule them around. ABC has made their share of scheduling blunders and missed opportunities over the past couple years. I’m afraid they are banking everything on a breakout hit that probably won’t come. With their few established hits continuing to get weaker, the prognosis for ABC right now doesn’t look very good.

The amount of breaks each show goes on (on for a few weeks, off for a few weeks etc), shifts in Time slots, yanked for a few weeks to try new shows etc etc, how are so many shows supposed to survive.

That kind of thing just does not happen here in the UK except with American imports. Whe 24, Prison Break etc went on a break there it did here too. People here always commented on how stupid that was.

A long running show is supposed to be something you can tune in for EACH WEEK and know its going to be on. I stopped watching Prison Break after the amount of silly breaks it went on.

Totally agree! Ther are some no attention spans on some of these assholes!

Grrr!!

Second season, outside of one or two episodes, the show ditched the high concept premise of comparing Sam’s life before and after her coma, and it became a second rate “Friends”-lite. And I think it jumped the shark in the episode where we found out that Sam’s father was a chicken farmer, or a chicken butcher, or something like that, something I could not get to synch with Sam’s family’s prosperous near-suburban Chicago lives.

I can treasure the one great year. (And, I can treasure that “Castle” got renewed, yippee!)

So I think 30 minute comedies will always be more affected by whatever other 30 minute shows are already on or off the schedule, and that makes show by show metrics analysis less predictive.

There were also creative problems. Season 2 tried to downplay the amnesia angle. They kept the thing about Samantha trying to be a better person, but the amnesia is where all the interest lay. It didn’t have to be front and center all the time, but several recent episodes ignored it completely.

I don’t understand why people bash ABC. They’ve given more creative shows the chance to catch on, and some did and some didn’t, but that’s life.

@Brad – The Scrubs finale pulled a 2.1 in the 18-49 demo, and a 3.5 overall rating, so get your information correct before you slam a show.

It just goes to prove, times may change but stupid network executives are forever! SW had the ptential to be a classic sitcom if ABC had shown it a little more support and patience. Dumb move!

…based on this news; is Dawn from the CW working at ABC now??

And how is Scrubs so inexpensive to produce after all these years, especially to merit the 1.0 it pulled in its most recent “finale”. (3 series finales for one show must be a new record! Especially when the show was never a big hit in the first place …) Aren’t licensing fees supposed to go up the longer the show is on the air?

Stupid decisions all around but I’ll agree, I’m not surprised. It’s ABC!!!

abc has cancelled a lot of good shows in the past, shows started as a success but sunk because abc underpromoted them and/or putting them on hiatus and putting them on the different timeslot.

not gonna be surprise if one day abc placed 4th in the primetime ratings race