‘Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell’ canceled by FXX; why it’s hard to blame them

It’s sad any time that you see a late-night show go, mostly because you know that from the host on down, everyone involved tried to do what they could to make it work. It’s even harder when your host in W. Kamau Bell seems to be a pretty honest and funny guy.

Unfortunately, the writing was on the wall for Bell’s FXX show “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell,” which has been formally canceled today. The final edition of the show is going to air on Thursday night, and this move comes just as the show was preparing to go on a hiatus.

There is really no way to dispute what the reason was for the cancellation. According to Deadline, executives were high on the show, and critical reception has been pretty solid. But on nights when the new network did not have a lead-in for it, the show only was drawing less than 20,000 viewers, and the performance was even more anemic in some of the network’s new youth-centered demographics. You just can’t survive if you are getting those sort of numbers, and it really doesn’t matter at all if you are a funny comedian or not. The issue here may just be that FXX made a mistake in hiring Bell to do his show daily right away, when it should have been weekly for a little while longer in order to build up an audience to make the transition.

We also still argue that FXX really still does not have the sort of audience that it really should just because many viewers can’t find it. The network is geared for that men 18-35 market, and many of these guys don’t have the money to get an extra cable package just for the network. FX is a little more affordable in that it comes with most basic packages, but another upgrade may not make sense in an age where so many people are looking online for new content.

What’s your reaction to this news? Sad? Disappointed? Share below, and we’ll have some more news from FXX as soon as it breaks.

Photo: FXX