Networks Canceling Shows With Millions of Viewers Is a Trend That Has to Die to Save Broadcast TV

Networks disturbing trend of canceling series with strong ratings is a trend that is killing broadcast. We break down this troubling issue!

The post Networks Canceling Shows With Millions of Viewers Is a Trend That Has to Die to Save Broadcast TV appeared first on TV Fanatic.

It’s the worst time of the television season for TV Fanatics.

As our favorite series head towards the final stretch, it leaves us to wonder which will remain and which will networks boot. It’s almost a guarantee that everyone has a couple of series they adore that are hovering on the bubble.

And by now, many of us have already heard the unfortunate news of cancelations about other shows we adore. Drop a note with us in the comments below with the shows leaving that you’re still upset about, let’s commiserate in the comments, or hell, share this with your friends.

The Ratings of Yesteryear Don’t Hold Up in This New Era

But what has been a growing and frustrating trend for some time is that we don’t seem to have a rhyme or reason for what gets canceled and what doesn’t.

It used to be about ratings. If a series underperformed, it was easy to understand why a network or streamer axed it. However, the problem for most layperson viewers is that, to their eyes, they don’t see how a series is underperforming.

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Television series with seemingly impressive ratings, raking up millions of views across all platforms for each episode, can suddenly find themselves shuffled off the network schedule with the snap of a finger, leaving a trail of outraged, betrayed fans in its wake.

Part of the issue is that the millions of viewers from 30 and 40 years ago aren’t the same as now. Why? Because television and how we view it has fundamentally changed over the past few decades.

Television Has Evolved, But Networks Are Still Committed to Old Ways and Expectations

It used to be more of a universal experience. Your favorite show came on at a designated night and time, and everyone who watched it tuned in because, short of taping it while viewing it, the odds of you seeing the episode again or catching up with it were slim.

It was easy to rave about the high-number ratings when demographics had to park themselves in front of the television and had no other options.

However, the internet and streaming changed that. Suddenly, people weren’t all watching the same things simultaneously, and there were more options to view a series at your convenience when you wanted to. This made it harder to gauge success and ratings when you had to factor in many other things.

All of this resulted in this newfound era of television and ratings, in which, networks rely on an archaic structure, expecting to pull the same types of numbers as they did decades before while simultaneously sorting through what feels like an ever-changing system to determine what’s worth keeping versus not.

Conflicting Messages About Ratings Means Anything Risks Cancelation

Sadly, it’s not as much about the quality of the series or even giving a show time to build an audience as it is about how much money it costs to create and whether a network is getting back on its return quickly enough to justify the expense.

What makes this so confusing is that it results in networks canceling series that aren’t pulling in the ratings they’d like, a certain number of million views, and axing the series that ARE bringing in those ratings.

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Magnum: PI was a prime example of this. Whether on CBS or NBC, the series averaged up to seven million viewers, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Let’s not forget that NCIS: Hawaii may have averaged around six million viewers. The effects of that cancellation still linger, as spurned viewers swore off CBS shows or the entire NCIS franchise after that betrayal.

If a series can secure millions of views and still wind up on the chopping block, what’s the point of anything anymore? Where’s the sense of commitment to the audience?

Many Factors, Logical and Ridiculous, Now Contribute to Cancelation Decisions

Let me take you back to a comedy that eventually became a cult hit: Freaks and Geeks.

It’s still mystifying in hindsight that NBC threw that show away when it garnered more than six million views. It was a unique but delightful series with strong ratings, and they tossed it away after one season just because THEY couldn’t figure it out.

If the audience loved it, what was there to figure out?

Networks prioritize money over creativity and loyalty, which puts viewers off. In the end, it’s not just about ratings anymore. There are many other reasons why they will abandon a series, including production costs, budgeting issues, not having full rights and ownership, streaming costs, and even hitting the desired demographic.

That’s right. A series like A&E’s Longmire would pull five million viewers and be the most-watched series on the network, but because its audience skewed older and advertisers didn’t like that, they canceled it. Ridiculous, right?

The craziest thing is that the coveted 18-49 demographic advertisers love?

Most of them aren’t even watching television the same way for advertisers to capitalize off of them, but you know who is? The older demo of whom networks scoff. Ironically, that demo is who comprise the millions of viewers to broadcast shows in the first place.

Broken Trust Between Networks and Viewers is Killing Broadcast

Networks don’t invite any form of trust or produce enough consistency to reassure viewers, which, in retrospect, harms them in the long run.

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The trust between networks and viewers is destroyed, and there’s no way broadcast can sustain itself this way when pissed-off, scorned viewers no longer want to invest in anything when they feel like they’re not valued.

There’s very little payoff for viewers anymore, and without them, broadcast ceases to exist and thrive. It’s also disappointing that most broadcast television can’t establish its identity anymore.

Instead, there’s a vibe that they’ll push out whatever they can to see what sticks, and if it doesn’t immediately take off, they give up on it rather than nurture it.

Why do you think they spend more time relying on reboots and revivals of what used to work rather than creating new and innovative content?

Fans are still reeling from the loss of not one but both FBI spinoffs. They averaged around 6.5 million viewers, which begs the question: When did that stop being enough?

But because they don’t score as much as the original, and they dropped in ratings and demos significantly as we come off of strikes and other things that keep decimating how television works at large, it’s apparently not enough.

Broadcast Cannot Survive Under These Current Circumstances

We’re also facing possible cancellations of The Equalizer, which steadily declines despite four million viewers, and other series across NBC, especially ABC (do we really think ABC will renew Doctor Odyssey?).

But if broadcast wants to sustain itself and thrive, it needs to come up with another game plan.

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Cutting and axing multiple series that, on paper, appear to be strong performers and garner so much viewership will not keep networks afloat.

It burns the audience. Nobody wins.

Over to you, TV Fanatics. Do you think Broadcast needs to stop the trend of canceling high-rated series? Let’s hear your thoughts below!

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