The spring TV season is a time of renewals and cancellations, and the hit scripted series 9-1-1 was in the unique position of experiencing both at the same time. The show was cancelled in a surprising move from Fox after rising to become the network’s highest-rated scripted drama, but that wasn’t the end of the story for Angela Bassett and Peter Krause in primetime. ABC picked up the show, which raised the question of why the move was happening. Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade has provided the answer.
According to Rob Wade, the decision to end 9-1-1’s run at Fox and switch it over to ABC was made a year prior, and Variety further reports that the Fox Entertainment CEO told press why the move was made:
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.
The ever-changing business model when it comes to network television resulted in the big switch for 9-1-1, which was originally ordered when production company 20th Television and Fox fell under the same business umbrella. The show premiered in early 2018, but changes followed Disney’s acquisition of 20th Television in 2019. The cost per episode is reportedly upwards of $9 million, and the show was just four episodes shy of the 100th episode milestone when it ended its run on Fox. It is still available streaming with a Hulu subscription, as it was during its Fox days.
Interestingly, Fox held on to 9-1-1: Lone Star as the successful spinoff of 9-1-1, starring Rob Lowe. Crossover events – which were already few and far between other than some occasional character sharing on one or the other – are now “extremely unlikely,” according to Fox Entertainment scripted programming president Michael Thorn. Lone Star stands on its own quite well, and some stars have already previewed what’s ahead following the Season 4 finale.
Of course, the future of when 9-1-1 will premiere its first episode on ABC is unclear, in light of the WGA writers strike. The show’s new home originally announced in early May that the show would premiere in the 2023-2024 TV season; whether that meant a plan for fall or for midseason wasn’t confirmed at the time. More recently, ABC announced that its entire fall lineup will be unscripted, with the exception of reruns of Abbott Elementary.
What was confirmed was that 9-1-1 had the kind of ratings that would have made the situation altogether shocking if the show had been cancelled without another network picking it up. According to ABC at the time of the announcement, Season 6 of the show ranked as the top entertainment series on Mondays and tied as second entertainment series on the broadcast networks (primarily ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) in the 2022-2023 TV season's valuable 18-49 age demographic.
For now, you can always revisit the first six seasons streaming via Hulu, and check out our picks of 9-1-1 storylines that need to continue with Season 7 and the move to ABC.
