It is the dream of every show creator to be renewed for another season. It is in many ways the ultimate compliment; “your show is so great and you are so talented, that we would like to give you a huge pile of money to make some more!”
Sounds great doesn’t it? And with the animation industry as transient as it is, getting an order of more episodes is a fantastic form of job security. You know when you are likely to run out of work, unlike say, myself, who could get the can any time, whether the job I’m working on is finished or not.
While renewing shows is generally a good thing (and there are plenty of examples where shows have been inexplicably renewed), sometimes it amazes me how quickly TV people jump the gun when it comes to shows.
The Cleveland Show is a prime example, where it was renewed before the pilot was even broadcast. That took a lot of guts in FOX’s part and yet it was certainly viewed as arrogance by some people, who thought that they should have waited to see concrete numbers before committing to a second season.
Too many shows have been screwed around by the networks and have ended up being cancelled because of supposed low viewing numbers. Two of said shows have been FOX productions so perhaps that’s something they should really work on.
Kids networks like Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon are slightly different in that they don’t broadcast new content at the same amount as other networks (perhaps another reason I don’t cough up for cable) so they seem to be able to re-run shows ad-nausuem without wearing out their audience.
With the advent of online streaming and video on demand, we should see a switch to more precise viewing numbers. I hope that shows can get out there sooner, in other words before the entire season has finished production. As Adventure Time has proven, a show can have plenty of fans before it even gets off the ground. Every show should be like that, not just the really good ones.