Times are hard for the Farrells of Shay Mountain. WGN America has cancelled its Outsiders TV show after just two seasons. That there will be no Outsiders season three comes as a bit of a surprise, because the (albeit low-rated) Appalachian family drama was the cable channel’s top performer in the Nielsen ratings. The April 25th season two finale will now serve as an unintentional Outsiders TV series finale.
Outsiders stars Joe Anderson, David Morse, Ryan Hurst, Gillian Alexy, Kyle Gallner, Thomas M. Wright, and Christina Jackson. The WGN America drama follows the Farrell clan. This tight-knit isolationist family has lived atop Shay Mountain for over two hundred years. They are constantly at odds with those who live outside of their community.
Outsiders TV Series on WGN America: A Look at the Ratings
The second season of The Outsiders is averaging a 0.22 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 795,000 viewers. Compared to season one, that’s down by 24% in the demo and down by 3% in terms of average total audience size. Find out how The Outsiders stacks up against the other WGN America TV shows.
Sony Pictures Television to Shop Outsiders TV Show to Other Networks
Deadline reports Sony Pictures Television will try to shop around a third season of Outsiders, but it’s kind of late in the year to do so. The news outlet also mentioned the possibility that parent-company Tribune Media is looking to sell off WGN America as a reason for cancelling its highest rated show. Here’s more.
Speculation about a potential Tribune sale, which has been going on for years, intensified recently with a report about a potential merger with Sinclair. There have been rumors about potentially stripping the company to get it ready for a sale though in a statement about Outsiders‘ cancellation, Kern stresses that the company’s intends to “expand” WGNA’s original content and to “be reallocating our resources to a more diverse programming strategy and to new structures.” Here is his full statement:
After three years of investing in marquee, brand-defining dramas, WGN America has successfully expanded its audience, its reach, and its presence in the minds of viewers. In our next phase, we intend to expand our original and unique content to continue growing our relevance and appeal to the widest possible audience. To achieve this, we will be reallocating our resources to a more diverse programming strategy and to new structures, enabling us to expand both the quantity and breadth of content aired by WGN America.
This move is designed to deliver even more value to our advertising and distribution partners. To free up the resources to reach this goal, we will unfortunately not be renewing Outsiders. We are grateful to our production partners at Sony Pictures Television and the terrifically talented people who made the show possible.
What do you think? Are you still watching the Outsiders TV show? Do you think another network will pick up the third season, or do you expect it to remain cancelled? Sound off in the comments.
I love, love this show!!! Please have another season! Sally Ann and Gwen is pregnant for goodness sake!!!
Please, another network pick this show up! Don’t want it to end
I like the show very much and hope someone will pick it up they have been doing promotional products and that would help
You cancel the best show on your channel how stupid can you get? Put it back on for at least a season 3 to get closure. You’ll probably replace it with a stupid reality show.
Canceling the station’s biggest earner is odd at best. It should be picked up by a other station as we hope it will. Love programs that think outside the box!
We love the Outsiders.
We are from holland and we have seen both seasons. Hope somebody will pick up the pieces and continu making the following seasons because this can not be the end of The outsiders yet!!!
I really liked the show I hope some Network picks it up.
DO NOT CANCEL!!! To just leave viewers with no finale is mean spirited and very unprofessional. The series shows people that are not the rich elites with big houses, fancy cars, scotch and fancy wines and lots of sex and violence. Maybe some of us flyover country people enjoy stories about folks who live a much simpler life. Most of us are not rich and live our lives in a much more realistic world. The Middle is an excellent example of how real people live. PLEASE SOME NETWORK, PICK UP THE OUTSIDERS!
I love the Outsiders! It was be a huge mistake to cancel this show! I had never heard of WGN let alone watched a series on WGN! A friend of mine told me about the series so I watched the first season via Netflix DVD to get acquainted with the series. I loved Season 1 so I found WGN in my satellite channels and made sure I watched the 2nd season. The fact there may not be a 3rd season just lets me know that it was a fluke having decent programming on WGN since they would be foolish enough… Read more »
I love the the Outsiders. I finally had a show I couldn’t wait til Tuesday night. It was different than all these other shows on TV. It actually had real life meaning , rather than just silly and really stupid things happening in their lives everyday. There are so many things left hanging that I need the answers to on this show. I sure hope you pick it back up or someone else does. This is so disappointing. You show re runs from 1989 over and over again but you can’t keep playing a really good new show something is… Read more »
I love this show. As the daughter (Thank God he got out of this business), and granddaughter, great, great- great etc.. not to mention niece, cousin, the list goes on and on of Coal Miners, I related to this show on both fronts, the coal miners needing work and the Farrell’s wanting to keep their mountain land pure. This was the one show that both my husband and I would watch together. Hope another station picks it up. WGN, I really don’t watch much on your station, now will watch even less. Hope you will reconsider.
This show was very
Much a hit to me sorry to see it go away. Wake up people and do what a lot of viewers want. A new season of Outsiders
How disappointing, how annoying. We really enjoyed this show because it was different than everything else on TV.
That’s a disappointment! Hope someone picks up..thought it was a great show
I love this show!!!! Pick it up someone, this show is. Awesome and I am a older African-American woman