NBC has cancelled freshman series Are You There, Chelsea?, Awake, Bent, and Best Friends Forever. I have also learned that NBC has opted not to renew its licensing deal for the Sony Pictures Television/eOne produced The Firm, effectively cancelling the series.
The cancellation of all five series had been expected for some time as all shows had a hard time finding and maintaining an audience. Are You There, Chelsea?, which followed Chelsea Newman, a single barmaid, as she tried to persevere through the struggles life threw her way, premiered to 6.18 million viewers and 2.3 rating, but by the time of its finale the series had lost half of its audience and only pulled in 3 million total viewers and a 1.2 rating in the 18-49 demo in live+same day. Awake, Bent, Best Friends Forever and The Firm suffered similar fates of premiering to ok ratings only for all four series to drop below a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demo before the end of their respective runs.
That said, it is unclear what effect NBC’s decision to “cancel” The Firm will actually have on the series. To be specific, as we mentioned above, the network has opted not to renew its licensing deal for the series. However, the show’s 22 episode first season had been ordered by Sony Pictures Television for their global portfolio of AXN channels long before NBC boarded the series as the US broadcaster. As such, I’m told that it is still possible for Sony to renew the series for their 125+ AXN stations across EMEA. Either way, you likely won’t be seeing the series again in the United States.
TVWise’s Broadcast TV Scorecard has been updated with this new information.
