NBC - "There's Nothing Watchable the Rest of the Year"

I know I've been picking on NBC a lot in this blog, but number 1, it's just too easy, and number two, it's because they've been having major financial problems lately the media has been coming NBC stories a lot more than usual. Anyway, the big news this week is that NBC cancelled its cop drama, Southland, before the second season even premiered. The show already had six episodes in the can were in the process of filming more when the news came down from the higher-ups that NBC plugged the plug before seeing what the ratings would be like. Before I go into more detail here is a promo clip for the show to given those of you who've never seen it an idea of what it's about.

NBC says that it cancelled the show because it was too expensive to produce (it costs over 2 million an episode); however, if this is the only reasons that NBC gave Southland the boot then it seems to follow that new show, Trauma, which costs 3 million an episode will soon follow Southland on this season's list of casualties. Nikki Finke from Deadline Hollywood recently stated that NBC insiders are still using Ben Silverman, who is no longer an NBC employee, as their go-to excuse for their shows' failures. However, the most shocking part of the article was that Finke reported that one NBC insider went so far as to say that "there's nothing [new] watchable the rest of the year". Even if that's true, it doesn't seem like a great idea to tell the public that.

I think the real reason that NBC decided not to give Southland the time to grow is that NBCU is trying to tighten up its finances for its potential sale in November. At this point though, no matter how many more shows they cancel "to save money" this season the network really needs to stick behind the shows it already has and try to build solid audiences rather than just throwing them out and starting from scratch.

Here are a few more articles on the whole Southland fiasco:

"Southland": Leno's First Casualty

NBC Cancels Well-Regarded 'Southland'