Perhaps you can explain ...
Question: Perhaps you can explain something to me. CBS canceled
Smith because, while it started out strong enough, it lost viewers every week thereafter. But NBC renews
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip even though, like
Smith, it started out strong but has bled viewers with each subsequent episode. Huh? The situations were identical, yet the results were very different. What's up with that?
Answer: Apples and oranges, my friend. You can compare the ratings situations, but the shows are not at all alike. And the networks that each show airs (aired) on are in such different places.
Smith was a departure for CBS (being about the bad guys instead of the good guys), and it aires in one of the network's few troubled time periods. (I'm not sure
3 LBS is going to fare much better as its replacement.) Several execs have gone on record saying that, given where they saw that show heading creatively, they didn't believe it had a chance to reverse the sliding ratings trend. In other words, they gave up on it. NBC has nowhere near as stable and strong a schedule as CBS, and can ill afford to cut bait on something it believes in. We debate and argue about
Studio 60 a lot in this column, but it's still one of the more fascinating, even promising, shows of the new season. I'm glad it's getting the full season, and soon enough a new time period, to prove itself. It still may not get renewed for next fall, but this was the right call for now, despite ratings evidence to the contrary.
