EXCLUSIVE: Craig T. Nelson and co will have to find a new UK home. My sources are telling me that executives at Channel 5 have decided not to pick up the UK broadcast rights to the third season of NBC’s drama series Parenthood for its 5* channel. That decision, which follows on from Channel 5’s recent decision to drop the David Duchovny fronted comedy series Californication, leaves multi-generational family drama series Parenthood without a UK broadcaster.
Based on the late 1980’s feature film of the same name, Parenthood was developed for US television by Jason Katims and follows the daily lives of all three generations of the Braverman family. The drama series, which is currently airing its fourth season on NBC in the US, is produced by Universal Television and stars Craig T. Nelson, Peter Krause, Lauren Graham, Dax Shepard, Monica Potter, Erika Christensen, Sam Jaeger, Savannah Paige Rae, Sarah Ramos, Max Burkholder, Joy Bryant, Miles Heizer, Mae Whitman, Bonnie Bedelia and Tyree Brown.
The decision to drop Parenthood comes after the series’ relatively lackluster performance on 5* this past year. The show’s second season was initially airing on the channel in the 10pm time-slot on Thursday nights earlier this year before low ratings prompted executives at Channel 5 to pull the series from the schedule in March. It was several months later, in June, that the series returned to 5* airing daily in a low key mid-afternoon time-slot. I’m told that the decision to drop the series was due, almost entirely, to the ratings, which one source described as being “so small, you would have to describe Parenthood as having a cult following.” That same source also told me that “given the sorts of numbers it [Parenthood] was pulling in, and the cost of acquiring future seasons, it just doesn’t make sense to continue the series.”
Parenthood has been re-added to TVWise’s Acquisitions Scorecard as unsold.
