With a heavy lineup of new prime-time programming on the way, Fox cleared room in its schedule with the announcement late last week that it was killing off two shows: the drama series “The Following” and the comedy-drama “Backstrom.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s Live Feed reports: “A breakout hit when it premiered midseason 2013, ‘The Following’ has steadily lost its audience (a post-NFL ratings pop last year, excluded) since the premiere, and the third season seemed to solidify that its viewership would not be bouncing back. With timeshifting, it still pulls 5.5 million viewers and a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49, but same-day showings have dwindled — even with a lead-in from ‘Gotham.'”
“Backstrom,” starring “The Office” alum Rainn Wilson, is an hourlong crime series developed by Hart Hanson, who’s behind the network’s hit “Bones.” “Backstrom’s” freshman season “hasn’t been a disaster” over its 13-episode run, THR notes, averaging a 1.5 rating in 18-49 with 5.6 million viewers.
Shame about Backstrom, well written, well acted and entertaining, should have gotten a renewal. I’ll miss it.
Backstrom is one of those shows that needs to be picked up by Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Apple or any of the half-dozen other new players in original television. It’s a quality show, with a sizable audience, strong characters, better-than-average writing and a great star performance by Rainn Wilson. It’s too good to die. Feel the same way about NBC’s State of Affairs. Good shows like this deserve to live on.
The network schedules have increasingly created their own problems with ad sales and a decline in viewership. Shows are moved around, not given adequate exposure and time for the audience to find them. Even when we do find them, they get moved, put in hiatus, preempted, so we lose interest and never get emotionally invested. A number of the shows canceled this year were shows I liked but they never were consistently scheduled. I am a boomer and I am ready to move frtim cable and network to Netflix and others. 🙁