(Photo by: Jack Zeman/FOX)
9-1-1 ended its run on FOX with last night’s season six finale, but the drama series will continue on ABC with a seventh season. FOX CEO Rob Wade recently revealed more about the decision to cancel the network’s highest-rated series and the possibility of future crossovers with 9-1-1: Lone Star, a show that FOX kept.
Starring Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Oliver Stark, Kenneth Choi, Aisha Hinds, Ryan Guzman, Corinne Massiah, Marcanthonee Jon Reis, and Gavin McHugh, the formerly FOX series follows the first responders from the 118 in Los Angeles.
The decision to cancel 9-1-1 was made last year, when the show was renewed for a sixth year. Though it gets high ratings, it’s an expensive show and FOX doesn’t own it. Wade said the following about the 9-1-1 cancellation decision per Deadline:
“Needless to say, you look at shows in two different ways. It’s first and foremost from the creative lens and how much we love to create, and the second thing is really the economics of that. And I think we felt moving forward into what is really a new era of television, the economics weren’t going to pan out for this show for us. The decision was made there that the business model wasn’t right for us, and that 20th would take the show back.
As we all know the industry as an inflection point but Fox looks at the game differently: we are daring in everything we do, adaptable to the market and disciplined in our approach. We’ve adopted new business models for production and talent deals. We’re out of the pilot business and have implemented-year round development. We’ve led the way in broadcast-direct deals for creators and we’ve bolstered our production facilities and efficiencies. And, importantly, Fox is owning or co-owning our content, giving us even greater creative freedom. That means when deciding what stories to tell, there are two factors, we have to love the creative and we have to love the business model.”
9-1-1: Lone Star is less expensive for FOX, so it’s been renewed for a fifth season by the network. With the shows now on separate networks, will viewers see any more crossovers between the two shows in the future? It isn’t likely, per Wade. He said the following:
“Right now we’re really focused on our own schedule and how we look forward with our own series. We’re really proud of the 9-1-1 franchise and excited to announce another season of Lone Star. It’s really a standout series… and rest assured, we’re going to relaunch that show. It’s an important show to our audience, and we’re very excited to have it back. As far as crossovers go, crossovers has always been really hard on the 9-1-1 franchise because they’re such ambitious schedules. We weren’t able to do it every year when both shows ran on the network, anyways.”
Neither network has announced its schedule for 2023-24 yet. It is possible that 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star could air in the same time slot on different networks.
What do you think? Do you plan to follow 9-1-1 to ABC for its seventh season? If you had to choose, would you watch 9-1-1 or 9-1-1: Lone Star?
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