‘Gotham’ wasn’t an in-house show for the Fox Network. Could this be the reason why it was cancelled?
Many of the forums still discuss why ‘Gotham’ was cancelled. Since the deal with Walt Disney, Fox has de-emphasized scripted programming, doubled down on news, sports, and reality programs, and given even more of a priority to having its own shows on air. This leaves less room for a show like ‘Gotham’, which isn’t made in-house.
Highlights —
- Thursdays telecast of ‘Gotham’ is out of the question
- ‘Gotham’ isn’t a FOX show
- Low ratings
Thursdays telecast of ‘Gotham’ is out of the question
Fox carried ‘Gotham’ on Monday nights for its first three seasons. For the fourth season, it was switched to Thursdays. But Thursdays are off the table for any scripted programming like ‘Gotham’ on Fox for a huge chunk of the year. Thanks to the network’s deal with the NFL to carry Thursday Night Football, which has moved from NBC and CBS, ‘Gotham’ can’t be put for Thursday telecast.
Fox is carrying 11 games on Thursdays on its broadcast network beginning with the fourth week of each season and has to devote 30 more hours on its slate to football, excluding Thanksgiving. Moreover, the network will also produce seven more games for the NFL Network.
Fox Sports will pay $3.3 billion for over five years or about $650 million annually that is $200 million more each year than NBC Sports and CBS Sports, which shared the package earlier. Fox paid big for the NFL package because it needed a proven rating after it shed 21st Century Fox and shift its overall focus to sports and reality programming. Even though football is slumping, and networks like NBC and CBS are losing money on their football package, Fox is investing big on football.
Moreover, from the beginning, Fox has a lower footprint on-air and fewer time slots each week. This is because its prime-time schedule ends at 10 PM, while for rivals like ABC, CBS, and NBC, the scheduled programs go up to 11 pm.
‘Gotham’ isn’t a FOX show
‘Gotham’, the famous television series, is produced by Warner Bros, and not Fox. This is one of the reasons that made ‘Gotham’ less valuable and more expensive to the network than many of its other programs.
Networks have tended to favour shows that are produced by the part of their corporate family over shows produced elsewhere, ever since the rules that forbade TV networks from producing and owning shows were undone in 1993.
The reason behind this is that if a show is a hit when it reaches syndication or goes to a streaming service, the company would rather not see the windfall go to some other outfit. If a show is a really big hit, then those shows could even cover the costs from the shows that didn’t make it to 100 episodes and weren’t syndicated.
‘Gotham’ wasn’t an in-house show for the Fox Network. Could this be the reason why it was cancelled?
It’s very difficult for any show like ‘Gotham’, with slipping numbers, to justify its continued presence on the line-up. But, considering all things being equal, the edge often goes to shows where the network at least has a stake in it, if it doesn’t own it outright. ‘Gotham’ doesn’t have that edge with Fox. And speaking of those slipping numbers, ‘Gotham’ hasn’t performed well for the network after the first season.
Low ratings
On September 22, 2014, ‘Gotham’ debuted on the Fox network and averaged 7.56 million viewers and a 2.8 rating in the 18-year-old to 49-year-old age demographic in the debut season. For later seasons, the show couldn’t keep its numbers high.
These above reasons answer why ‘Gotham’ was cancelled without mentioning the Disney/Marvel buyout conspiracy. Let us know your views on the cancellation of ‘Gotham’ in the comments box below.
