To no surprise, ABC’s Better Off Ted has been cancelled after two seasons on the air. Though it was a hit with critics and a devout group of fans, it just never found a mass audience.
Better Off Ted follows Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington) and his fellow employees at Veridian Dynamics, a strange and heartless technology company. The rest of the cast includes Andrea Anders, Jonathan Slavin, Malcolm Barrett, and Portia de Rossi.
Last May, ABC decided to show some faith in the freshman sitcom and renewed Better Off Ted for a second season. At that time, the ratings weren’t great and they got even worse after the renewal announcement.
When the network began airing the remainder of season one during the summer months, they averaged a terrible 0.74 in the 18-49 demographic and 2.09 million viewers.
For season two, Ted debuted with a 1.5 rating in the demo and 3.82 million viewers. As bad as those numbers sound, they got even worse.
Paired with Scrubs, ABC decided to burn off the remaining episodes of Ted in January. Despite campaigning from some loyal fans, viewership hit a new low for the season — a 0.8 rating and 2.17 million viewers.
The writing’s been on the wall for a long time and realistically, based on the numbers, the TV show shouldn’t have been renewed for a second season. Many in the cast have taken other jobs and the series has now been cancelled by ABC.
What do you think? Many really loved this show but it never attracted a big audience. Why?
Image courtesy ABC.
I love Better Off Ted. I have just finished watching the entire first season on Netflix Instant View. The characters are funny and smart. I especially like the strong female characters, very nice to see after the dreary-ness of the strangely popular Mad Men. I also like the format, a short, smart, funny show I can watch and then get on with things. I don’t watch commercial television anymore, and I don’t miss it. I just wonder what people are watching that Better Off Ted doesn’t do well enough to be renewed. Same for The Riches. What the heck are… Read more »
Better off Ted was a great show. It was different and refreshing. I agree that it should have been in the line up with The Middle and Modern Family.
Another refreshingly funny and creative show canceled. I was still grieving the loss of Samantha Who? when I found Better off Ted and thought I’d found the perfect replacement. When will a show be given the opportunity it needs? When will intelligent programming like these be marketed toward their likely success? I’m so tired of the stupid writing, pointless stories and bad plots that dominate the airwaves.
I guess I’ll go back to my Sports Night dvd collection now.
Better off Ted was fresh, smart, and funny. A combination that should not be cancelled. I agree that it was more a time slot problem than anything else. I myself DVR’d the program to watch when my other shows were done. It should have been on Wednesday with Middle, Modern Family and Cougar town. Now that would be a good line-up. I hope somehow it finds a home.
very sad, great show, don’t think ABC ever gave it a shot, I didn’t even know that season 2 started until after the 3rd show, and they started putting on 2 shows a night, which really hurt the rattings
This was a great and hilarious show! ABC really lacked on promoting it correctly and killed it when it was moved to tuesday! Wednesdays line up was perfect for this wonderful show! I don’t get into many shows anymore, and this was one of my favorites….I’m so let down yet again by the regular networks…This is one of the reasons i don’t watch many ABC/NBS etc shows anymore cuz right when i start to enjoy a great show, cancelled!
Big mistake ABC….big!
Better Off Ted should never have been canceled, with proper promotion it would have done so much better. If they had just spent what it deserved, they could just have renewed this awesome show, instead now they’re going to have to develop something from the complete unknown. This show had more than potential, it actually was extremely good just as it was. ABC has chosen to not take advantage of that, which doesn’t speak well of their artistic vision.
This deserved more, but as your objective, you can’t say you agree or disagree can you?
My husband and I loved the comic genius of this wonderfully-written show and the general poking-fun at corporate America. I agree with the comments of many: people did NOT know about this show. When we told our families about it, they had never even heard of it. I think the Modern Family crowd would really like this show because the humor is very similar. What a disappointment. It’s the only recent comedy I have liked on television besides Modern Family.
Portia de Rossi was fantastic, as was the actor who played Ted.
I’m going to miss the Veridian dynamics commercials. Those were hilarious!
Looking forward to the next show written by these writers!
I enjoyed this show very much and thought Portia de Rossi did an outstanding job. I hope to see her again in the fall.
Alas like Dilbert, Better Off Ted was only truly funny for people who actually do work at a large corporation…
Glad to see that this website is objective in its view of tv shows. WOW
@John: We are objective about shows but poor ratings are poor ratings. Very funny sitcom but not enough viewers agreed.
I’ve never understood why ‘Ted’ never got better ratings. It was an excellent, smart and funny show.
ABC are jerks.
This show was very funny, but had a serious lake of promotion. I told others about it and most did not even know about the show, but once they watched it, the liked it. (To bad I did not know 4 million more people..lol). If this had been our friends in Cougar Town, the Middle and Modern Family it might have stood a chance.