My friend Aaron Barnhart posted some thoughts on the resignation of ABC programming honcho Steve McPherson. Unlike some, Barnhart thinks McPherson had a solid run at ABC and notes some of successes.
In Aaron's opinion, McPherson's fundamental flaw was he canceled too many series before they had a chance to root.
To me, McPherson’s core flaw was he kept snuffing out series before they had a chance to do much. “Better off Ted” is just the most recent example. Stand up as your show is called: “Pushing Daisies,” “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Eli Stone,” “Cavemen” (that one was for Itzkoff), “The Nine,” “Invasion” …
I have a lot of respect for Mr. Barnhart. He is, after all, the person who basically told me "Watch The Wire, or be a dope and miss out on perhaps the best show in the history of TV -- the choice is yours." I wound up agreeing with him about that, but here I respectfully disagree.
It could be the scheduling machinations with Better Off Ted are to blame, but, even after awful (not just bad, but AWFUL) ratings, McPherson still renewed Better Off Ted.
Dirty Sexy Money, Pushing Daisies and Eli Stone were all hit by the WGA strike, but its hard to specifically quantify any role of the strike in those shows' failure. But McPherson still brought all three of those shows back for second seasons, and while they didn't have the horribly awful ratings of Better Off Ted, the ratings for all three shows were typically worse than mediocre. Update: Commenter DonJ1973 notes that Eli Stone wasn't really hit by the WGA strike, it was a mid-season launch in early 2008.
From a ratings perspective, it could be argued in the case of all four of those shows that his flaw wasn't snuffing them out too soon, but not snuffing them out soon enough.
A couple of the few reasons I tuned to ABC were Defying Gravity and Life on Mars, and both shows got cancelled way too early.
Pushing Daisies was one of the best shows ever created, in my humble opinion, but I can honestly see why it didn't work with American audiences. It was more surreal than anything ever seen on TV: more surreal than Fox's groundbreaking Malcolm In The Middle and the equally groundbreaking soap opera parody Desperate Housewives. I thought the imagery on PD was unbelievably beautiful and the scripts were perfect, but this type of odd show has never been done before on TV and it probably will never be done again.
Eli Stone was kind of like ABC's attempt at a Touched By An Angel-type series. It was touching and spiritual; but it was also quirky, witty, and full of random musical sequences a la Glee. It even had DWTS as a lead-in, which should've been the most compatible show to go along with Eli, but it just didn't work out well.
Which is a sad reflection on the average American viewership, that the ratings were so low. At least for Pushing Daisies, which was brilliant. (As were the other short lived Bryan Fuller creations, Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me, but Fox is to blame for that.)
By the way, Pushing Daisies wasn't so much renewed for a second season as it was allowed to finish its original 22 episodes order.
Seriously, no matter what FlashForward fans will try to have you believe, ABC has been the kindest network to flops in recent years.
Those fans, along with the Moonlight fans, are some of the craziest! “ABC sucks; I'll never ABC again after this; FlashForward was the best show since Lost.” It gets old, really, hearing the same nonsensical “pleads” that fans of certain shows will post on websites like TVBTN.
Invasion didn't have horrible ratings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_(TV_series) These are hardly bad ratings, but it was cancelled on what was one of the best second season setups of all time. ABC spends a lot of time rescheduling and putting shows on hiatus. Those are show killers.
I think that he definitely cancelled shows too soon. He was too busy searching for the next huge hit (after Lost) to see that it makes sense to keep a bunch of shows that are moderate successes. It seemed like he just wanted to clear room on the schedule for more pilots until he found the next Lost which inevitably never came.
P.S. That list forgot about Jericho.
P.S. You forgot that Jericho wasn't on ABC.
That link tells me that Invasion premiered well (at least in total viewers, it doesn't include demo ratings) but quickly shed most of its viewers. Remember, this was in 2005. 9 million viewers was not a hit show back then. Not even close.
Thank you Carissa, I was going to make the exact same point.
Invasion was averaging 9 million viewers when ABC yanked it. Moonlight debut with 10 million and averaged 8 million viewers when CBS killed it. Finally, Women's Murder Club debut with 10 million and averaged 9 million over the lifetime of the show before Mr. McPherson murdered it.
These are shows that had MORE than enough healthy viewership and didn't deserved to be cancelled. Calling fans of of these shows “crazy” is insulting.
Considering V debut with 14 million and by the time it was renewed it was down to 5 million viewers. Rookie Blue debut with the same amount of viewership Moonlight had when it was cancelled and RB just got renewed for a second season.
If fans of these of these shows are “crazy” they have every right to be. Their shows got shuffled around, put on hiatus and just plain “screwed by the network” for no good reason.
Whether these shows were canceled too soon or not, I don't really trust ABC anymore. What's worse, having three seasons of mediocre ratings or never getting good ratings for a new show again. I think that's what happened to FOX. They're quicker to cancel than any other network, and I don't think anyone is eager to jump on board their new shows anymore.
Then again, NBC keeps shows around for longer than they should, and that's not really working. But, speaking for myself, I'd rather watch an NBC show because I feel more secure knowing that it'll be given a chance.
It is not reasonable to compare ratings for struggling show in 2005, 2006, 2007 or 2008 to shows in 2009-10.
Moonlight had marginal 18-49 ratings when it was canceled and was certainly right on the bubble of cancellation (could've gone either way) based on the ratings of its day.
Also, total viewers doesn't matter to the ratings, but that dead horse has been beaten.
Julia, in 2010, even if it's showing paint drying on a wall, no network is gonna cancel a show that gets NINE MILLION viewers week in and week out.
Too bad The Invasion didn't air in 2010.
Of course they got cancelled way too early.
robb1138 ABC tore down Defying Gravity's set before the pilot had even aired. Basically saying “we don't care what the ratings are…you're cancelled”. WTF?
Considering there were 6 production companies involved with Defying Gravity (and ABC wasn't one of them, they just had licensing rights in the US) I don't think you can really blame ABC for that one.
ABC tore down Defying Gravity's set before the pilot had even aired. Basically saying “we don't care what the ratings are…you're cancelled”. WTF?
WTF? You're wrong, that's WTF. ABC didn't even produce “Defying Gravity” it was a Fox Television Studios co-production (and ABC wasn't one of the co-producers).
damn your youthful nimble fingers.
Well, for as much Fox hate as there is out there, they probably give ABC a run for their money in that department. They kept “Dollhouse” around for a second season, “Fringe” is getting a third, “Human Target” is getting a second season, and “T:SCC” got a back nine pickup even though the ratings were terrible at that point.
When Invasion, Commander in Chief and Murder Club aired, ABC was too quick to cancel. Those shows had potential, but LOST, DH, Grey's and DWTS were in full swing, so they had a short fuse. Those shows had potential. Eli, DSM, BOT, FF, Eastwick, Life on Mars – all shows that I liked – were given more than a fair amount of time to find an audience and didn't. End of the story.