Under the reign of Ben Silverman, NBC spent a whole lot of money on Kings — about $4 million an episode. Unfortunately for the peacock network, most viewers weren’t interested and the network lost a lot of money.
After three weeks of low ratings, they shuffled the series off to die on Saturday evenings, when viewership is typically lower anyway. While many devoted fans tuned in each week to watch actors like Ian McShane, Christopher Egan, Allison Miller, Susanna Thompson, Sebastian Stan, Eamonn Walker, and Dylan Baker, the numbers weren’t enough for the show to go back into production.
Not only won’t Kings be returning for a second season but NBC isn’t planning on taking that kind of ambitious risk again. The network’s President of Primetime Entertainment, Angela Bromstad, said this week, “It was a great production, but our challenge now is, you need to sell something. People want to know what something is about.”
Bromstad continued, “Kings was a complex idea. It was originally developed when I was [at NBC] before. We didn’t make it [then] because we thought it was a little too high brow and too difficult to sell in a 30 second slot. It doesn’t mean we’re not looking for big ideas [but] they have to be big ideas that the audience can grab on to.”
What do you think? Was the concept too much for the audience to grasp or did it fail for another reason? Too good for network TV?
Image courtesy NBC.
IN THIS TIME OF DESPAIR, PEOPLE NEED SOMETHING SPIRITUAL TO RELATE TO, NOT JUST CRAZED SEX AND IMMORALITY. WHY NOT HAVE SOLD THE EPISODES TO HALLMARK OR EPIX OR HBO/SHOWTIME! THERE IS A NEED TO WATCH WHOLESOME THINGS NOT DEPRAVITY BUT THINGS THAT THE BELIEVING COMMUNITY CAN WATCH WITH KNOWING THAT ONE CAN IDENTIFY WITH THE STORY LINE! ITS NOT ALL ABOUT MONEY AND GREED! WE ARE IN NEED OF SEEING AND HOLDING ON TO MORALS! SOMEBODY NEEDS TO TAKE THE HIGH GROUND AND PUT “KINGS” BACK ON THE AIR, ESPECIALLY DURING THESE PANDEMIC AND SILENT MOMENTS THAT HAVE BESET… Read more »