‘Betty White’s Off Their Rockers’ brought back to life at (wait for it) Lifetime

How much television can Betty White do in a year’s time? Despite the woman being close now to 92 years old, she still stars on “Hot in Cleveland.” Not only that, but her hidden-camera show featuring her and other senior citizens embarrassing the living you-know-what out of young whippersnappers has just been given a new life on another network after being canceled by NBC earlier this year.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lifetime (who was already airing off-network repeats of the show) has picked up 20 more episodes of “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers” to air at some point in 2014. This is actually a longer season than what the show did on NBC this past time, where it was mostly used to fill holes in the schedule after other things were canceled.

The truth here is that the show really did not do that awful when you look at its pure numbers alone, as it brought in a 1.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic on average. So why did NBC cancel it? We imagine it as being a result of a few factors.

1. There was no DVR playback – This is a show that people were watching because Betty’s funny, and they were bored. Nobody went out of their way to watch.

2. There was little buzz – Unless there was a big-name guest star, no one was really talking about it.

3. They felt good about their new shows – Of course, the irony here is that “Welcome to the Family” is already canceled, “Sean Saves the World” is close to a flop, and even “The Michael J. Fox Show” has disappointed despite a full-season order in advance.

Lifetime still has some important decisions to make when it comes to the future of some of their other shows on the schedule. “Drop Dead Diva” is constantly on the brink of cancellation (especially given that it was canceled once already), and “The Client List” is still waiting for a decision after Jennifer Love Hewitt and the producers have fought over some creative issues.

Photo: Lifetime