Posted on 01/17/2006 9:47:28 AM PST by LouAvul
PASADENA, California (AP) -- The Camden family is disappearing from television in May strictly for financial reasons: the WB's top executive said Sunday that the network is losing $16 million this year on "7th Heaven."
The family drama, the most popular program in the network's history, will end its run after 10 years. The decision seems irreversible despite an Internet campaign to save it, even though "7th Heaven" is still the WB's second highest-rated show after "Gilmore Girls." (The WB, like CNN, is a division of Time Warner.)
Production costs tend to jump for television series as they get older, largely because the salaries of actors and others involved grow with success. "7th Heaven," about a family of seven and all their friends, has a large cast.
Reruns of "7th Heaven" were fading in the ratings, too, and that made it tougher for the network to recoup its investment, said Garth Ancier, the WB's top executive.
"As much as we all love the show, we do have to run a business," Ancier said.
Other older WB series, "Smallville" and "Gilmore Girls," don't have the same problem, he said.
Talks about a spinoff to "7th Heaven" have proven inconclusive so far.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
There's a network called the WB?
Warner Brothers
i watched this the first couple of years in was on the air... i didn't watch it religiously... just when i could... those were the days when i was not yet a parent... when i had more time! i lost interest as the Camden children aged... all of a sudden Mary was a delinquent...
Plus who wants to watch a family with normal Christian values. There's nothing unusual about that. Average people turn on the boob tube to feel better about their own lives.
I know, I forgot my sarcasm tag...ooops! :-)
There was a period of time, what I'd like to call my personal dark age, that I had NO cable! I had to use an old 13 inch black and white set with a jerry-rigged antenna set-up consisting of headphone wire and paper clips, and all I could get were the networks-ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, PAX, and the WB.
I watched a lot of Seventh Heaven and got a bit sucked in, although I couldn't tell you any of the plot lines.
Also caught a lot of Bonanza!, Little House on the Prairie, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and LA Law.
They were very dark days, my friends.
Actually, I watched it with the kids early on, but then it got exceedingly humanistic and everyone kind of went off the deep end. It also go much more sexual as the Camden kids grew older.
So, since I couldn't watch it with the kids, we stopped all together. No loss really.
They announced this like two months ago, why is it news now.
The sequel 2nd Heaven about the two surviving members of a family of seven is still in salary negotions to see which actors will take a pay cut and which characters will be eaten by wild dogs. < /sarcasm>
All of the kids turned out pretty delinquent.
Largely, a 16-year-old girl's network.
However, it did surprise me that it was quite conservative in the beginning, considering it was made by the same guy who did All in the Family.
Maybe because dummies like my wife and me didn't hear it untill yesterday?
The show has just been awful for the past several years and is in dire need of being cancelled. It long ago lost it's direction and became little more than another hour of dreck occupying a time slot in "the great wasteland".
naw......it's Boston Legal.
The first few seasons, the show was good. Like most, it got crappy as it aged.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.