Hannibal’s fate is up in the air

By: American Decency Staff

As this season of television programming is coming to an end, TV networks are already finalizing their program lineups for the new fall season of shows.  NBC recently announced its fall line-up for the 2013-2014 television season – and noticeably absent from their lineup was the repulsive show, “Hannibal.”

A press release from NBC stated a decision would be made “in the next few weeks” regarding whether “Hannibal” would be renewed or cancelled.  “Hannibal” premiered on April 4 as a late season replacement and has 6 additional episodes scheduled to air in the upcoming weeks.

While “Hannibal’s fate is up in the air, the show’s ratings have continued to be at the bottom of the heap.    The last episode of “Hannibal” drew less than 2.5 million viewers overall – compared to ABC and CBS which each drew 9.12 million and 8.98 million viewers respectively for the same time slot (Thursday at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time Zone). 

The NBC lead-in to Hannibal is a show entitled “The Office” (which drew 5.69 million viewers).  This past Thursday was the series finale of “The Office” and so NBC aired a special extended episode of “The Office” from 9:00 pm to 10:15 pm – cutting into Hannibal’s timeslot by 15 minutes.  It’s very noteworthy that instead of running their programming past 11:00 pm as has often been done by networks, NBC instead chose to air Hannibal “with limited commercial interruptions.”

In fact, there were only three ads during the entire episode of “Hannibal” – and two of those three advertisements were local ads during a local station break!

Knowing that ad time is the network’s bread and butter, it’s very interesting that NBC decided to eliminate advertisements during the last episode of “Hannibal” in order to make it fit into the timeslot.  NBC could have easily let the show run past 11:00 pm.  Is it because they’re having a hard time selling ad time anyway?  Has NBC had to cut ad rates so much in order to fill advertisement spots during “Hannibal” that it wasn’t much of a loss for NBC to decide to not even bother with selling ads during the episode?  It’s common for networks to reduce their advertising rates to companies in an attempt to lure sponsors to unpopular shows.

While these trends give us hope that “Hannibal” will be on the chopping block, the news about Hannibal’s fate is still concerning.  As The New York Daily News reports, others may be waiting in the wings to broadcast this disgusting show.

"Hannibal," NBC’s dark serial-killer drama, is not dead.

But it’s not quite living either.

The show, starring Mads Mikkelsen as cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and Hugh Dancy as a master FBI investigator, was the only exiting series to go through the network upfronts this week without NBC brass telling the producers if it had been canceled or renewed.

Although there is buzz now that Amazon.com is interested in buying future episodes of the show to add to its growing online programming schedule, according to Deadline.com.

There’s also word that a cable network has approached producers to pick up the show if NBC dumps it.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv-movies/nbc-serial-killer-drama-hannibal-limbo-article-1.1346129#ixzz2TrJmPH1w

Help us keep the pressure on NBC and the sponsors of “Hannibal.”

Take Action!  Click here to send a message to the one lone national advertiser (Lexus) and two local advertisers (Ford and LaBatt Blue beer) from the latest episode of “Hannibal.”

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