There was a lot of excitement about reviving Suits, which made the cancellation of the Stephen Amell starrer Suits: LA on Friday all the more surprising.
When asked over the weekend why the spinoff from Suits creator Aaron Korsh had to go, NBCUniversal’s President of Program Planning Strategy Jeff Bader admitted “it’s so hard to talk about shows and which ones we’re bringing back.”
“Suits: LA had a very short run, but it really has not resonated [with audiences in] the way we thought it would,” Bader told reporters during a press conference on Saturday. “There can be many, many reasons why it hasn’t resonated, but it’s just not showing the potential to grow for us in the future, unfortunately. Those are the decisions we had to make.”
Bader said there were number of considerations they had to make before spiking Suits: LA, along with The Irrational, Night Court, Found and Lopez vs. Lopez. “We had to look at the performance of the shows, both on linear and on digital,” said Bader. “We had to see the ones that looked like they had growth potential in the future. We’re looking at how stable they are in their linear performance, how stable they are on digital which ones are growing, which ones are declining. And we had to make some hard decisions.”
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The network briefly considered whether any of the canceled shows could enjoy a second life on Peacock, Bader said, though none have are set to make the transition.
Among all the canceled shows, The Irrational had the biggest audience this season at 4.4M viewers. Found was at 3.7 miillion, Lopez v. Lopez at 2.3 million, Night Court at 2.2M, and Suits: LA at 2.1M.
Chicago Fire remains NBC’s most watched drama, at 7.7 million. NBC renewed Dick Wolf’s three Chicago dramas, as well as Law & Order: SVU and the mothership series.
The Hunting Party (3.9M) and Brilliant Minds (4.8M) were the only freshman series to earn a second season.
