Last Man Standing canceled by ABC; no season 7 for Tim Allen comedy
Today, ABC confirmed that they are cancelling the Tim Allen comedy after six seasons of the show. The big reason for the surprise here is that this has been a steady, consistent player over the course of the past sever years. As a matter of fact, it only fell 5% this year in the 18-49 demographic when looking at the live+same day ratings. It recently entered syndication, and it was performing surprisingly well there.
So why end the show now? Maybe there were some cost considerations, or maybe there were some other issues in terms of the show being the right fit for what the network has on the air at the moment. We do know that it appealed to a very different viewership than the majority of the other series airing on the network; the majority of its viewers were from the midwest, and the show expressed more of a conservative viewpoint than many others on network TV.
One of the things that really surprises us is some of the coverage of the cancellation already — Entertainment Weekly used the word finally on the website to describe its end — but by all standards and considering the timeslot, this show was a pretty solid hit for them. One of the things that does need to be considered here is that this is the time in a show’s run where contracts often rise due to negotiations, and maybe that is something that the network really didn’t want to deal with.
Ultimately, we won’t admit to being a regular viewer of the show — maybe we saw it once or twice over the course of its run. Yet, it’s still somewhat shocking to see a show that fared pretty well all things considered end in such a way without much ceremony. Think back to most other shows that last six seasons. Did any of them end in a way where there wasn’t a whole lot of hype around their end?
What did you think about Last Man Standing being canceled? Share some of your thoughts now with a comment below!
Mark Schuler
May 11, 2017 @ 11:14 am
shame on you abc!!!