TOM FRANCIS
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Why Terriers Was Axed

“Based on what these people saw in those two episodes, the FX-centric viewer just rated it lower in areas such as intensity, suspense, sexiness. When you talk to the USA-type viewer, they rate it lower than their favorite shows because it’s not a land in which every babe is hot, and the sky is incredibly blue, and everybody lives in an apartment three times as big as they could legitimately afford, and everything comes out great in the end. What we ended up with—and this is a much more nuanced and complicated answer—was a show that somehow fell between two brands.”
FX president John Landgraf

Depressing as that is, it’s nice to see the president of the whole network take significant time to explain the exact logic by which they axed Terriers. And while it is a bad name, and showing anything dog-related inevitably hurt it, he’s a pretty clear thinker about statistics and their significance. There’s even something refreshingly scientific about the way he breaks down his job, and his capacity to influence the outcome. It’d be nicer to think there’s a massive audience for smart stuff with no obvious hook and some evil middleman was stopping it reaching them, but Landgraf’s elaboration is more likely to be tough truth than an easy lie.

“If the answer is as simple as change Terriers to Beach Dicks and take the dog off the poster, and it’ll quadruple its audience, then I’m being dumb in not picking it up, especially since it’s such a good show. I did my best to answer that question, and unfortunately the answer was resoundingly no, that’s not likely to create a different outcome. Because for whatever reason—that’s disappointing and not entirely fathomable—people just don’t want to watch this show.”

Cheers to Chris for the link.