Who owns the show. Roseanne or ABC?
Roseanne Revival Ratings Are Dropping; Hit New Low Update: CANCELLED! and BACK AGAIN
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Then they won't sell the license to Fox or anybody. It's basically a useless product now.
and they are pulling the show off ALL platforms as we speak.
Why ABC had to cancel Roseanne
It’s not (just) because it was the right thing to do.
By Todd VanDerWerff@tvotitodd@vox.com May 29, 2018, 4:50pm EDTSHARE
ABC
Roseannewas the No. 1 show on TV for the 2017-’18 TV season, as ABC’s various representatives never tired of reminding attendees of its recent upfront presentation to advertisers. It was a dominant cultural monolith.
And now it’s canceled — the highest-rated show everto not return for a new season when it by all rights should have. (Most high-rated shows that don’t return reach the end of long runs and choose to close up shop on their own terms, as happened with Seinfeld, Cheers, and many, many others.) Star Roseanne Barr’s blatantly racist tweet about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett was the nail in the show’s coffin, but the star’s conspiracy-obsessed, constantly-flirting-with-overt-racism Twitter feed was always a ticking time bomb. This was always going to happen. It just wasn’t expected to happen so quickly.
ABC cancels Roseanne following “abhorrent, repugnant” comment from Roseanne Barr[/paste:font]
(A hopefully edifying sidebar: The previous bearer of the “highest-rated show to be canceled when it normally wouldn’t have been” title was CBS’s one-season sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie, which ran from 1972 to 1973, came in fifth place for that TV season, and was canceled because it depicted a Catholic woman marrying a Jewish man. Representatives of both faiths were offended by their respective representations — as well as the very idea of an interfaith marriage, which was held up as contrary to the teachings of both religions. This gives you a sense of how drastically the boundaries of the culture war have shifted in the intervening 45 years; conservative outrage led to the end of Bridget, but progressive outrage led to the end of Roseanne.)
From a moral and ethical standpoint, canceling Roseanne was the right call. But if morals and ethics were the only things at play, the show would have ended long ago — or wouldn’t have been revived in the first place. ABC had to have known that Barr’s Twitter feed would be a problem, and it’s telling how often the star has “left” Twitter (or turned her account over to her kids), only to get right back to it. Keeping Roseanne on the air meant managing Roseanne, and fans of both the original show and its revival surely knew there are few more difficult tasks in the world.
So there had to have been reasons for Roseanne’s cancellation beyond the moral and ethical ones. And believe it or not, I think you can make a really compelling business case for canceling the show as well.
Roseanne debuted huge and then promptly lost viewers
By the time of its finale, Roseanne had lost around half its viewership.
ABC
When Roseanne debuted in March 2018, its ratings were the TV story of the year. With 18 million viewers and a 5.1 rating among the 18- to 49-year-old viewers advertisers most care about, the show was pulling in the sorts of numbers network TV only dreamed about. Once viewers on DVR and streaming platforms were factored in, the number rose to more than 27 million viewers total. The series was quickly feted as a new gold standard for a hit sitcom, and was just as quickly renewed.
To be clear: A lot of the early ratings momentum was always going to leach away from the series, as it did with NBC’s Will & Grace and Fox’s The X-Files revivals, which both opened big and then quickly declined. The premieres of these revivals garner lots of curious viewers who want to see what an old show looks like in the 2010s but don’t particularly care to keep up week to week, or choose to watch later when they can binge the full season.
And Roseanne did see a similar downward trajectory. By the time its finale aired on May 22, it had lost almost half its live viewership (down to around 10.5 million viewers) and fully half its younger viewership (down to a 2.5 in the 18- to 49-year-old demo). And while we don’t yet have final streaming and DVR numbers for the finale, the trajectory in those numbers has followed a slightly less steep but similar decline.
But the numbers for the first Roseanne revival season were so big that it almost didn’t matter, and it certainly didn’t hurt that one of the main audiences still watching TV live (and, thus, still watching TV commercials live) is older, whiter, and more rural than the national average — both prime Trump voters and prime Roseanne viewers. Had the series held steady at 10.5 million viewers and a 2.5, it wouldn’t have been TV’s No. 1 show, but it would have been comfortably in the top 20 — and probably in the top five once DVR and streaming viewers were factored in.
But this isn’t really how TV works anymore. The best guess for what would happen to Roseannein its second revival season is that its audience would continue to drift away, as happened with the second revival season of The X-Files, which struggled to move the needle, even though it was creatively much stronger than the first revival season.
There are so many different ways to watch — and monetize — TV now that even a Roseanne that halved its season one finale audience (going down to 5 million viewers and the low 1s in the demo) probably would have found a way to justify a spot on the lineup.
But that presumes a Roseanne that still draws healthy advertiser interest, which is to say it presumes a Roseanne whose star isn’t provoking outrage on social media every other week.
In the short term, canceling Roseanne makes very little sense. But in the long term, keeping Roseanne on the air made no sense.
ABC
ABC doesn’t directly own Roseanne, which means that it doesn’t control all the eventual revenues from the program from sales to streaming companies, to international broadcasters, and so on. (You can read more about how this works here.)
Instead, the show is produced by the Carsey-Werner Company (its original production studio in the show’s 1988-’97 run) and Jax Media (which also produces Broad City, among others). Even if ABC got a cut of the show’s profits (as many broadcast networks do nowadays for shows their parent companies don’t technically own), it would be a small one. That’s an acceptable trade-off when the ratings are so huge that you know you’ll be making tons of money from advertisers, but it’s not when those ad dollars aren’t assured. (Because of this ownership situation, it’s not impossible that Roseanne could be revived elsewhere, but it would require such a specific set of circumstances that it seems incredibly unlikely.)
And though Barr had tweeted outrage-provoking things in the past, they were often shrouded beneath 17 different levels of conspiracy-mongering. To really get mad, you had to know, for instance, what “QAnon” meant, and many people are just never going to have the time to disappear down that particular rabbit hole. But the Jarrett tweet was immediate, virulently racist, and hard for even Barr’s supporters to deny as racist. It caused writer Wanda Sykes to leave the show even before its cancellation, and star Sara Gilbert (also a producer on the revival) to chastise Barr on Twitter.
But leave aside the advertiser of it all and think about this: At what point do you accept that Barr is going to keep tweeting things like this, turning off a growing portion of your audience, and if that continues to happen, soon only those who are watching to hear Barr say outrageously racist things will be around? When the show goes from the much more nebulous target audience of “people interested in considering the political divide in the Trump era” to the target audience of “hardcore racists,” what’s the damage not just to the show but to your network as a whole?
Roseanne was canceled. It isn’t the only sitcom tackling politics and the working class.[/paste:font]
And then consider that ABC is the network of Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat and Shonda Rhimes’s assorted dramas, and the only network in broadcast TV history to be headed up by a black person (in this case, Channing Dungey). At a certain point, Barr’s Twitter feed doesn’t just hurt Roseanne. It hurts all those other shows by sharing space with them, and it scares off peddlers of new shows who might not want to share a network with a series whose star seems intent on chasing away everybody who isn’t already predisposed to laugh at racist tweets.
Canceling Roseanne lost ABC a bunch of ad dollars in the short term. Nothing it airs in that time slot in the fall is going to replicate what even the declining Roseanne managed, and the network has opened itself up to attacks on the front that it doesn’t care about conservatives or Trump voters or something similar.
But in the long term, canceling Roseanne was the only decision that made sense. At a certain point, ABC would have stopped being the American Broadcasting Company and would have become the broadcast network home of Roseanne Barr’s Twitter feed. And in a future when traditional networks are less important than untarnished brand names, that was a trade-off not worth making.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/5/29/17406210/roseanne-canceled-abc-valerie-jarrett-roseanne-barr
It’s not (just) because it was the right thing to do.
By Todd VanDerWerff@tvotitodd@vox.com May 29, 2018, 4:50pm EDTSHARE
Roseannewas the No. 1 show on TV for the 2017-’18 TV season, as ABC’s various representatives never tired of reminding attendees of its recent upfront presentation to advertisers. It was a dominant cultural monolith.
And now it’s canceled — the highest-rated show everto not return for a new season when it by all rights should have. (Most high-rated shows that don’t return reach the end of long runs and choose to close up shop on their own terms, as happened with Seinfeld, Cheers, and many, many others.) Star Roseanne Barr’s blatantly racist tweet about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett was the nail in the show’s coffin, but the star’s conspiracy-obsessed, constantly-flirting-with-overt-racism Twitter feed was always a ticking time bomb. This was always going to happen. It just wasn’t expected to happen so quickly.
ABC cancels Roseanne following “abhorrent, repugnant” comment from Roseanne Barr[/paste:font]
(A hopefully edifying sidebar: The previous bearer of the “highest-rated show to be canceled when it normally wouldn’t have been” title was CBS’s one-season sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie, which ran from 1972 to 1973, came in fifth place for that TV season, and was canceled because it depicted a Catholic woman marrying a Jewish man. Representatives of both faiths were offended by their respective representations — as well as the very idea of an interfaith marriage, which was held up as contrary to the teachings of both religions. This gives you a sense of how drastically the boundaries of the culture war have shifted in the intervening 45 years; conservative outrage led to the end of Bridget, but progressive outrage led to the end of Roseanne.)
From a moral and ethical standpoint, canceling Roseanne was the right call. But if morals and ethics were the only things at play, the show would have ended long ago — or wouldn’t have been revived in the first place. ABC had to have known that Barr’s Twitter feed would be a problem, and it’s telling how often the star has “left” Twitter (or turned her account over to her kids), only to get right back to it. Keeping Roseanne on the air meant managing Roseanne, and fans of both the original show and its revival surely knew there are few more difficult tasks in the world.
So there had to have been reasons for Roseanne’s cancellation beyond the moral and ethical ones. And believe it or not, I think you can make a really compelling business case for canceling the show as well.
Roseanne debuted huge and then promptly lost viewers
By the time of its finale, Roseanne had lost around half its viewership.
ABC
When Roseanne debuted in March 2018, its ratings were the TV story of the year. With 18 million viewers and a 5.1 rating among the 18- to 49-year-old viewers advertisers most care about, the show was pulling in the sorts of numbers network TV only dreamed about. Once viewers on DVR and streaming platforms were factored in, the number rose to more than 27 million viewers total. The series was quickly feted as a new gold standard for a hit sitcom, and was just as quickly renewed.
To be clear: A lot of the early ratings momentum was always going to leach away from the series, as it did with NBC’s Will & Grace and Fox’s The X-Files revivals, which both opened big and then quickly declined. The premieres of these revivals garner lots of curious viewers who want to see what an old show looks like in the 2010s but don’t particularly care to keep up week to week, or choose to watch later when they can binge the full season.
And Roseanne did see a similar downward trajectory. By the time its finale aired on May 22, it had lost almost half its live viewership (down to around 10.5 million viewers) and fully half its younger viewership (down to a 2.5 in the 18- to 49-year-old demo). And while we don’t yet have final streaming and DVR numbers for the finale, the trajectory in those numbers has followed a slightly less steep but similar decline.
But the numbers for the first Roseanne revival season were so big that it almost didn’t matter, and it certainly didn’t hurt that one of the main audiences still watching TV live (and, thus, still watching TV commercials live) is older, whiter, and more rural than the national average — both prime Trump voters and prime Roseanne viewers. Had the series held steady at 10.5 million viewers and a 2.5, it wouldn’t have been TV’s No. 1 show, but it would have been comfortably in the top 20 — and probably in the top five once DVR and streaming viewers were factored in.
But this isn’t really how TV works anymore. The best guess for what would happen to Roseannein its second revival season is that its audience would continue to drift away, as happened with the second revival season of The X-Files, which struggled to move the needle, even though it was creatively much stronger than the first revival season.
There are so many different ways to watch — and monetize — TV now that even a Roseanne that halved its season one finale audience (going down to 5 million viewers and the low 1s in the demo) probably would have found a way to justify a spot on the lineup.
But that presumes a Roseanne that still draws healthy advertiser interest, which is to say it presumes a Roseanne whose star isn’t provoking outrage on social media every other week.
In the short term, canceling Roseanne makes very little sense. But in the long term, keeping Roseanne on the air made no sense.
ABC doesn’t directly own Roseanne, which means that it doesn’t control all the eventual revenues from the program from sales to streaming companies, to international broadcasters, and so on. (You can read more about how this works here.)
Instead, the show is produced by the Carsey-Werner Company (its original production studio in the show’s 1988-’97 run) and Jax Media (which also produces Broad City, among others). Even if ABC got a cut of the show’s profits (as many broadcast networks do nowadays for shows their parent companies don’t technically own), it would be a small one. That’s an acceptable trade-off when the ratings are so huge that you know you’ll be making tons of money from advertisers, but it’s not when those ad dollars aren’t assured. (Because of this ownership situation, it’s not impossible that Roseanne could be revived elsewhere, but it would require such a specific set of circumstances that it seems incredibly unlikely.)
And though Barr had tweeted outrage-provoking things in the past, they were often shrouded beneath 17 different levels of conspiracy-mongering. To really get mad, you had to know, for instance, what “QAnon” meant, and many people are just never going to have the time to disappear down that particular rabbit hole. But the Jarrett tweet was immediate, virulently racist, and hard for even Barr’s supporters to deny as racist. It caused writer Wanda Sykes to leave the show even before its cancellation, and star Sara Gilbert (also a producer on the revival) to chastise Barr on Twitter.
But leave aside the advertiser of it all and think about this: At what point do you accept that Barr is going to keep tweeting things like this, turning off a growing portion of your audience, and if that continues to happen, soon only those who are watching to hear Barr say outrageously racist things will be around? When the show goes from the much more nebulous target audience of “people interested in considering the political divide in the Trump era” to the target audience of “hardcore racists,” what’s the damage not just to the show but to your network as a whole?
Roseanne was canceled. It isn’t the only sitcom tackling politics and the working class.[/paste:font]
And then consider that ABC is the network of Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat and Shonda Rhimes’s assorted dramas, and the only network in broadcast TV history to be headed up by a black person (in this case, Channing Dungey). At a certain point, Barr’s Twitter feed doesn’t just hurt Roseanne. It hurts all those other shows by sharing space with them, and it scares off peddlers of new shows who might not want to share a network with a series whose star seems intent on chasing away everybody who isn’t already predisposed to laugh at racist tweets.
Canceling Roseanne lost ABC a bunch of ad dollars in the short term. Nothing it airs in that time slot in the fall is going to replicate what even the declining Roseanne managed, and the network has opened itself up to attacks on the front that it doesn’t care about conservatives or Trump voters or something similar.
But in the long term, canceling Roseanne was the only decision that made sense. At a certain point, ABC would have stopped being the American Broadcasting Company and would have become the broadcast network home of Roseanne Barr’s Twitter feed. And in a future when traditional networks are less important than untarnished brand names, that was a trade-off not worth making.
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/5/29/17406210/roseanne-canceled-abc-valerie-jarrett-roseanne-barr
N****** you ain't neva lied!
Not owned by ABC. Another reason why they said fuck it. That's all Carsey-Werner and Jax Media. Right now owning Rosanne is like owning a BetaMax library or having a Collection of RCA Selectavision CED movies. No place to play that shit.
did the show blackish ever get back at roseanne for the
subliminal snipes she took at the show??
they seem the type of show to get back at haters?
subliminal snipes she took at the show??
they seem the type of show to get back at haters?
And as we have seem that is NOT easy to do.
This is truth! But what we have seen is the white man will let white women take the hit! So im not surprised when they pulled the reruns! Cause we seen what they dnt do to the white men
These deranged racists will interoperate between Republican and Democrats, do not be fooled thinking it is Trump/Republican issue. They will use the Democrat/minority side to legitimize their racist beliefs with carefully selected coons have them cosign their issues than switch up to Republicans.
ABC cancelled her because these fools are going on terrorist streak because of me killing politicians, people praying in churches, and many other events. It is real bad right now in the country and globally.
They want no parts of them at all.
ABC cancelled her because these fools are going on terrorist streak because of me killing politicians, people praying in churches, and many other events. It is real bad right now in the country and globally.
They want no parts of them at all.
but also now they are setting a damn precedent...
I want to see Weinstein and all the others who are (and if) found guilty take the SAME DAMN HIT.
No, more than likely this season of black'ish was done filming before that episode of Roseanne aired. They have plenty of ammo for next season though...
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http://ew.com/tv/2018/05/30/roseanne-barr-abc-new-show-conners/
Roseanne update: ABC might put costars in new show
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ABC CANCELED 'ROSEANNE' AFTER ROSEANNE BARR'S RACIST TWEET
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LYNETTE RICE
May 30, 2018 at 01:46 PM EDT
Meet the … Bonners?
There could be a scenario in the works where ABC salvages significant parts of Roseanne without having to say goodbye to some of the best actors on television (here’s looking at you, Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman). Though ABC made a swift decision Tuesday to cancel the successful reboot, EW has learned that ABC has not exactly washed its hands of the family comedy.
Here’s the challenge, though: Roseanne was created by Roseanne Barr. The characters were conceived by her and Matt Williams. If the sitcom were to continue without the matriarch, the actress would still benefit financially. So a key insider informs EW that discussions will continue today on whether it makes sense to keep the other actors but potentially design a new series around them — ergo, the Bonners, or whatever you want to call Goodman, Metcalf, and the clan of misfits. Nothing has been decided, however, and various options are still being weighed.
It’s not as if everyone scattered after Tuesday’s cancellation announcement. After ABC ordered a second season of Roseanne in March, EW confirmed that cast options were picked up for another 13 episodes. Carsey-Werner, which produces the sitcom for ABC, is still on the hook for paying those salaries. And since ABC ordered a new season, it bears its own financial brunt from the cancellation. So keeping some kind of show intact wouldn’t be the worst decision for ABC.
Several of Roseanne’s best writers certainly aren’t going anywhere. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Dave Caplan noted that he, together with Roseanne EPs Bruce Helford and Bruce Rasmussen, are staying put with ABC. “[They] have a pilot project with Tom Werner for ABC, and we’ll continue working together. I know that Tom really regretted the fact that we had such a wonderful writing staff together — a real rare collection of talent — and I know he’d like to continue using it in some fashion if that were possible.”
Even Barr herself lamented on Twitter about how her actions resulted in hundreds of people being out of work. (Read more of her response on Twitter here). Officially, ABC isn’t talking about any new chapter for the now-beleaguered series, but Disney-ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood just sent out a statement to staff that said, in part, “we are so sorry the [cast and crew] were swept up in all of this and give thanks for their remarkable talents, wish them well, and hope to find another way to work together down the road.”
So what if ABC ultimately decides to make it all go away? “It’s not that much money,” observes a competing studio. “When you cancel a show, there are cancellation fees. And then there are costs of actually shutting down the production.”
The real loss comes from the potential ad revenue — Kantar Media ballparked it at $60 million next season in the New York Times — and what a show like Roseanne could have done for ABC’s schedule, to say nothing of how Carsey-Werner continues to lose boatloads of cash after the Viacom networks and Hulu yanked the Roseanne reruns. “Think of the ripple effect that show would have had on other shows,” observes the studio exec. “Now ABC won’t be able to start Tuesday nights with a giant.”
ABC declined to comment.
Roseanne update: ABC might put costars in new show
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YOU MIGHT LIKE
ABC CANCELED 'ROSEANNE' AFTER ROSEANNE BARR'S RACIST TWEET
×
LYNETTE RICE
May 30, 2018 at 01:46 PM EDT
Meet the … Bonners?
There could be a scenario in the works where ABC salvages significant parts of Roseanne without having to say goodbye to some of the best actors on television (here’s looking at you, Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman). Though ABC made a swift decision Tuesday to cancel the successful reboot, EW has learned that ABC has not exactly washed its hands of the family comedy.
Here’s the challenge, though: Roseanne was created by Roseanne Barr. The characters were conceived by her and Matt Williams. If the sitcom were to continue without the matriarch, the actress would still benefit financially. So a key insider informs EW that discussions will continue today on whether it makes sense to keep the other actors but potentially design a new series around them — ergo, the Bonners, or whatever you want to call Goodman, Metcalf, and the clan of misfits. Nothing has been decided, however, and various options are still being weighed.
It’s not as if everyone scattered after Tuesday’s cancellation announcement. After ABC ordered a second season of Roseanne in March, EW confirmed that cast options were picked up for another 13 episodes. Carsey-Werner, which produces the sitcom for ABC, is still on the hook for paying those salaries. And since ABC ordered a new season, it bears its own financial brunt from the cancellation. So keeping some kind of show intact wouldn’t be the worst decision for ABC.
Several of Roseanne’s best writers certainly aren’t going anywhere. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer Dave Caplan noted that he, together with Roseanne EPs Bruce Helford and Bruce Rasmussen, are staying put with ABC. “[They] have a pilot project with Tom Werner for ABC, and we’ll continue working together. I know that Tom really regretted the fact that we had such a wonderful writing staff together — a real rare collection of talent — and I know he’d like to continue using it in some fashion if that were possible.”
Even Barr herself lamented on Twitter about how her actions resulted in hundreds of people being out of work. (Read more of her response on Twitter here). Officially, ABC isn’t talking about any new chapter for the now-beleaguered series, but Disney-ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood just sent out a statement to staff that said, in part, “we are so sorry the [cast and crew] were swept up in all of this and give thanks for their remarkable talents, wish them well, and hope to find another way to work together down the road.”
So what if ABC ultimately decides to make it all go away? “It’s not that much money,” observes a competing studio. “When you cancel a show, there are cancellation fees. And then there are costs of actually shutting down the production.”
The real loss comes from the potential ad revenue — Kantar Media ballparked it at $60 million next season in the New York Times — and what a show like Roseanne could have done for ABC’s schedule, to say nothing of how Carsey-Werner continues to lose boatloads of cash after the Viacom networks and Hulu yanked the Roseanne reruns. “Think of the ripple effect that show would have had on other shows,” observes the studio exec. “Now ABC won’t be able to start Tuesday nights with a giant.”
ABC declined to comment.
‘Roseanne’ Spinoff Talks Heat Up at ABC
By Daniel Holloway
@gdanielholloway
Talks between ABC and “Roseanne” producers on a possible spinoff of the canceled multicamera comedy are building momentum.
Sources tell Variety that the network is increasingly interested in finding a way to continue the series without controversial star Roseanne Barr, whose racist tweet last week triggered the sudden cancellation of the show. The network and producers late last week scheduled a meeting to discuss spinoff possibilities. Talks between ABC and exec producers, including Tom Werner, stretched through the weekend and are now ongoing.
Several significant obstacles, however, remain to potentially prevent a version of the series from continuing without Barr. “Roseanne” is based on a character created by Barr, who could argue that she therefore has an ownership stake in any iteration that includes other characters created for the series, such as Sara Gilbert’s Darlene Conner, around whom much spinoff speculation has centered. Any situation in which Barr would stand to gain financially from a new series is considered unpalatable to ABC and producers.
ABC announced on Tuesday morning that it had canceled “Roseanne” just hours after the star apologized for a racist tweet directed at Valerie Jarrett, a former aide to President Barack Obama. Barr subsequently apologized for the tweet, later blaming it on her consumption of the sleeping drug Ambien. But since the show’s cancellation, she has lashed out at fellow stars and producers, including Gilbert.
“Roseanne” finished the 2017-18 television season as the No. 1 show in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demo, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day numbers. Barr was featured prominently last month at the network’s joint upfront presentation with cable channel Freeform, where she introduced Disney-ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood. The comic and the exec embraced in an onstage hug, with Barr joking that Sherwood was “the guy responsible for most of my tweets.”
In a statement last Tuesday, ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey said, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
By Daniel Holloway
@gdanielholloway
Talks between ABC and “Roseanne” producers on a possible spinoff of the canceled multicamera comedy are building momentum.
Sources tell Variety that the network is increasingly interested in finding a way to continue the series without controversial star Roseanne Barr, whose racist tweet last week triggered the sudden cancellation of the show. The network and producers late last week scheduled a meeting to discuss spinoff possibilities. Talks between ABC and exec producers, including Tom Werner, stretched through the weekend and are now ongoing.
Several significant obstacles, however, remain to potentially prevent a version of the series from continuing without Barr. “Roseanne” is based on a character created by Barr, who could argue that she therefore has an ownership stake in any iteration that includes other characters created for the series, such as Sara Gilbert’s Darlene Conner, around whom much spinoff speculation has centered. Any situation in which Barr would stand to gain financially from a new series is considered unpalatable to ABC and producers.
ABC announced on Tuesday morning that it had canceled “Roseanne” just hours after the star apologized for a racist tweet directed at Valerie Jarrett, a former aide to President Barack Obama. Barr subsequently apologized for the tweet, later blaming it on her consumption of the sleeping drug Ambien. But since the show’s cancellation, she has lashed out at fellow stars and producers, including Gilbert.
“Roseanne” finished the 2017-18 television season as the No. 1 show in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demo, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day numbers. Barr was featured prominently last month at the network’s joint upfront presentation with cable channel Freeform, where she introduced Disney-ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood. The comic and the exec embraced in an onstage hug, with Barr joking that Sherwood was “the guy responsible for most of my tweets.”
In a statement last Tuesday, ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey said, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
‘Roseanne’ Spinoff Update: More Progress As Deal Could Come Within A Week
by Nellie Andreeva • tip
June 15, 2018 6:14pm
It’s been almost three weeks since ABC’s abrupt cancellation of its flagship comedy series Roseanne following a controversial tweet by star and executive producer Roseanne Barr. And while there is still no official decision on a potential spinoff series, a lot of leg work has been done behind the scenes.
I hear Barr is expected to sign an agreement that would remove her from the potential spinoff and prevent her from suing over it. Terms of the agreements are unclear but it may involve a one-time payment from production company Carsey-Werner to Barr in exchange of her relinquishing any rights so she won’t be entitled to any profits from the spinoff.
Because of the circumstances under which ABC canceled the Roseanne revival, the network’s executives have been adamant that they would only proceed with a spinoff series if Barr has absolutely no involvement — creative, financial or any other.
I hear, barring any last-minute change of mind by Barr — which would not be completely out of character — her agreement is expected to be signed soon. I hear ABC has seven days after that to make a decision on a pickup.
With its conditions of no Barr involvement in the new series met, I hear ABC is likely to proceed with the spinoff. The network and the producers already had been brainstorming titles with several contenders in play. While Darlene was a moniker that had been circulated early on when rumors first surfaced about a possible new series centered on the character played by co-star/executive producer Sara Gilbert, I hear another name that is under consideration is The Conners, which would keep the strong ties to the original series without any Roseanne references while also underscoring the show’s family and ensemble nature.
As this is considered a new series, I hear the cast and the writers all have closed or are in final stages of negotiations on new contracts for the proposed spinoff to replace the deals they had in place for Season 2 of the revival. That doesn’t necessarily mean different terms; I hear the established stars of the show will likely remain at the previously renegotiated salaries for next season, reported to be around $300,000 an episode, though I hear the new pacts are for one year vs. the previous two-year length. I hear there have been some pay increases for the writing staff that are coming back.
This all is part of an intricate business translation which involves calculating the cost of ABC’s cancellation of Roseanne and the price of a possible spinoff and rolling one into the other. It is being handled by Carsey-Werner, which recently ramped up operations as it had not served as a studio on a series in more than a decade, since the end of That ’70s Show.
In anticipation of a pickup for the spinoff, ABC continues to hold off on announcing a replacement for Roseanne on its fall schedule.
In another positive sign, Barr who, at times has been combative on Twitter in the weeks after the Roseanne cancellation, has adopted a mostly conciliatory tone in the last day or so. This is what she tweeted earlier today:
https://deadline.com/2018/06/rosean...abc-title-roseanne-barr-agreement-1202411838/
by Nellie Andreeva • tip
June 15, 2018 6:14pm
It’s been almost three weeks since ABC’s abrupt cancellation of its flagship comedy series Roseanne following a controversial tweet by star and executive producer Roseanne Barr. And while there is still no official decision on a potential spinoff series, a lot of leg work has been done behind the scenes.
I hear Barr is expected to sign an agreement that would remove her from the potential spinoff and prevent her from suing over it. Terms of the agreements are unclear but it may involve a one-time payment from production company Carsey-Werner to Barr in exchange of her relinquishing any rights so she won’t be entitled to any profits from the spinoff.
Because of the circumstances under which ABC canceled the Roseanne revival, the network’s executives have been adamant that they would only proceed with a spinoff series if Barr has absolutely no involvement — creative, financial or any other.
I hear, barring any last-minute change of mind by Barr — which would not be completely out of character — her agreement is expected to be signed soon. I hear ABC has seven days after that to make a decision on a pickup.
With its conditions of no Barr involvement in the new series met, I hear ABC is likely to proceed with the spinoff. The network and the producers already had been brainstorming titles with several contenders in play. While Darlene was a moniker that had been circulated early on when rumors first surfaced about a possible new series centered on the character played by co-star/executive producer Sara Gilbert, I hear another name that is under consideration is The Conners, which would keep the strong ties to the original series without any Roseanne references while also underscoring the show’s family and ensemble nature.
As this is considered a new series, I hear the cast and the writers all have closed or are in final stages of negotiations on new contracts for the proposed spinoff to replace the deals they had in place for Season 2 of the revival. That doesn’t necessarily mean different terms; I hear the established stars of the show will likely remain at the previously renegotiated salaries for next season, reported to be around $300,000 an episode, though I hear the new pacts are for one year vs. the previous two-year length. I hear there have been some pay increases for the writing staff that are coming back.
This all is part of an intricate business translation which involves calculating the cost of ABC’s cancellation of Roseanne and the price of a possible spinoff and rolling one into the other. It is being handled by Carsey-Werner, which recently ramped up operations as it had not served as a studio on a series in more than a decade, since the end of That ’70s Show.
In anticipation of a pickup for the spinoff, ABC continues to hold off on announcing a replacement for Roseanne on its fall schedule.
In another positive sign, Barr who, at times has been combative on Twitter in the weeks after the Roseanne cancellation, has adopted a mostly conciliatory tone in the last day or so. This is what she tweeted earlier today:
https://deadline.com/2018/06/rosean...abc-title-roseanne-barr-agreement-1202411838/
Last edited:
‘Roseanne’ Spinoff ‘The Conners’ Picked Up By ABC With No Roseanne Barr Involvement
It’s official: ABC has given a 10-episode series order to The Conners (working title), a spinoff of Roseanne, for fall 2018. The spinoff will take over the Tuesday 8 PM slot on the ABC schedule that was vacated when Roseanne was suddenly canceled following a controversial tweet by star and executive producer Roseanne Barr. (Roseanne‘s order had been for 13 episodes.)
Barr will have no financial or creative involvement in the new series after reaching a settlement with series producer Tom Werner. The Conners will feature the rest of the Roseanne revival cast, John Goodman (“Dan”), Laurie Metcalf (“Jackie”), Sara Gilbert (“Darlene”), Lecy Goranson (“Becky”) and Michael Fishman (“D.J.”), who will reprise their Conner characters.
ABC
“I regret the circumstances that have caused me to be removed from Roseanne,” Barr said in a statement. “I agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved.”
It is unclear how exactly Barr’s character will be written/killed off but ABC describes it as “a sudden turn of events.” On the new show, after a sudden turn of events, the Conners are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before. This iconic family – Dan, Jackie, Darlene, Becky and D.J. – grapples with parenthood, dating, an unexpected pregnancy, financial pressures, aging and in-laws in working-class America. Through it all, the fights, the coupon cutting, the hand-me-downs, the breakdowns – with love, humor and perseverance, the family prevails.
“The Conners’ stories demonstrate that families can always find common ground through conversation, laughter and love. The spinoff will continue to portray contemporary issues that are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago,” ABC said in a statement.
Added cast members John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson and Michael Fishman said in a joint statement, “We have received a tremendous amount of support from fans of our show, and it’s clear that these characters not only have a place in our hearts, but in the hearts and homes of our audience. We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working-class family today. We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter.”
I hear the actors, who all had two-year deals for Roseanne, recently signed new one-year contracts for the spinoff, keeping them at the same salaries, believed to be around $300,000 an episode.
The writing-producing team that had been in place for Season 2 of the Roseannerevival are set for The Conners after new deals with the writers a number of whom got raises I hear. Tom Werner executive produces alongside Sara Gilbert, showrunner Bruce Helford, writers Dave Caplan and Bruce Rasmussen as well as Tony Hernandez. The series is from Tom Werner and his Werner Entertainment, a tweak from the credits of Roseanne, which was produced by Carsey-Werner.
Because of the circumstances under which ABC canceled the Roseanne revival, the network’s executives had been adamant that they would only proceed with a spinoff series if Barr has absolutely no involvement — creative, financial or any other. After a deal with Barr, the network had seven days to pick up the spinoff, which it did. In anticipation of an order for the offshoot, ABC held off on announcing a replacement for Roseanne on its fall schedule.
“Tom Werner and Roseanne Barr have reached an agreement that will allow Werner Entertainment to produce a spinoff of the Roseanne series for ABC without Barr’s further creative or financial participation,” Werner and Barr said in a joined statement.
Added Werner, “We are grateful to have reached this agreement to keep our team working as we continue to explore stories of the Conner family.”
Immediately after the May 29 cancellation of the Roseanne revival — ABC’s highest rated and most watched series last season, the producers behind it started mulling a spinoff without Barr. The writers bounced around ideas and the creative team met with ABC on June 4. The network quickly jumped on board if the new series could be done without any Barr financial interest. After a couple of weeks of back-and-forth, an agreement between Werner and Barr was reached, paving the way to a pickup.
Roseanne was created by Matt Williams, based on a character created by Roseanne Barr. The fact that the follow-up series does not feature Barr’s character Roseanne Conner, rights to which she is said to maintain, made it easier to hammer out an agreement with her.
The pickup keeps the Roseanne crew employed as they risked being out of a job after the series’ cancellation at a very unfortunate time when shows for next season already had been staffed.
https://deadline.com/2018/06/rosean...-abc-no-roseanne-barr-involvement-1202415440/
It’s official: ABC has given a 10-episode series order to The Conners (working title), a spinoff of Roseanne, for fall 2018. The spinoff will take over the Tuesday 8 PM slot on the ABC schedule that was vacated when Roseanne was suddenly canceled following a controversial tweet by star and executive producer Roseanne Barr. (Roseanne‘s order had been for 13 episodes.)
Barr will have no financial or creative involvement in the new series after reaching a settlement with series producer Tom Werner. The Conners will feature the rest of the Roseanne revival cast, John Goodman (“Dan”), Laurie Metcalf (“Jackie”), Sara Gilbert (“Darlene”), Lecy Goranson (“Becky”) and Michael Fishman (“D.J.”), who will reprise their Conner characters.
ABC
“I regret the circumstances that have caused me to be removed from Roseanne,” Barr said in a statement. “I agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved.”
It is unclear how exactly Barr’s character will be written/killed off but ABC describes it as “a sudden turn of events.” On the new show, after a sudden turn of events, the Conners are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before. This iconic family – Dan, Jackie, Darlene, Becky and D.J. – grapples with parenthood, dating, an unexpected pregnancy, financial pressures, aging and in-laws in working-class America. Through it all, the fights, the coupon cutting, the hand-me-downs, the breakdowns – with love, humor and perseverance, the family prevails.
“The Conners’ stories demonstrate that families can always find common ground through conversation, laughter and love. The spinoff will continue to portray contemporary issues that are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago,” ABC said in a statement.
Added cast members John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson and Michael Fishman said in a joint statement, “We have received a tremendous amount of support from fans of our show, and it’s clear that these characters not only have a place in our hearts, but in the hearts and homes of our audience. We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working-class family today. We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter.”
I hear the actors, who all had two-year deals for Roseanne, recently signed new one-year contracts for the spinoff, keeping them at the same salaries, believed to be around $300,000 an episode.
The writing-producing team that had been in place for Season 2 of the Roseannerevival are set for The Conners after new deals with the writers a number of whom got raises I hear. Tom Werner executive produces alongside Sara Gilbert, showrunner Bruce Helford, writers Dave Caplan and Bruce Rasmussen as well as Tony Hernandez. The series is from Tom Werner and his Werner Entertainment, a tweak from the credits of Roseanne, which was produced by Carsey-Werner.
Because of the circumstances under which ABC canceled the Roseanne revival, the network’s executives had been adamant that they would only proceed with a spinoff series if Barr has absolutely no involvement — creative, financial or any other. After a deal with Barr, the network had seven days to pick up the spinoff, which it did. In anticipation of an order for the offshoot, ABC held off on announcing a replacement for Roseanne on its fall schedule.
“Tom Werner and Roseanne Barr have reached an agreement that will allow Werner Entertainment to produce a spinoff of the Roseanne series for ABC without Barr’s further creative or financial participation,” Werner and Barr said in a joined statement.
Added Werner, “We are grateful to have reached this agreement to keep our team working as we continue to explore stories of the Conner family.”
Immediately after the May 29 cancellation of the Roseanne revival — ABC’s highest rated and most watched series last season, the producers behind it started mulling a spinoff without Barr. The writers bounced around ideas and the creative team met with ABC on June 4. The network quickly jumped on board if the new series could be done without any Barr financial interest. After a couple of weeks of back-and-forth, an agreement between Werner and Barr was reached, paving the way to a pickup.
Roseanne was created by Matt Williams, based on a character created by Roseanne Barr. The fact that the follow-up series does not feature Barr’s character Roseanne Conner, rights to which she is said to maintain, made it easier to hammer out an agreement with her.
The pickup keeps the Roseanne crew employed as they risked being out of a job after the series’ cancellation at a very unfortunate time when shows for next season already had been staffed.
https://deadline.com/2018/06/rosean...-abc-no-roseanne-barr-involvement-1202415440/
Roseanne Barr Calls Into Podcast and Apologizes Through Tears
Turns out Roseanne is extremely sorry. The Blast has obtained audio of the comedian calling into Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s podcast at Stand Up NY and breaking down in tears. She tells the host, “I’m a lot of things. I’m a loudmouth and all that stuff, but I’m not stupid, for God’s sake, and I never would have wittingly called any black person … say they are a monkey. I never would do that! And I didn’t do that. And if people think that I did that it just kills me. I didn’t do that, although they think I did. And if they do think that I am so sorry that I- ya know, it was so unclear and stupid. I’m very sorry but I don’t think that, I never would do that.”
The “that” in this case is a now infamous tweet Roseanne wrote where she talked about former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett thusly: “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj”, she has since blamed this tweet on everything from Memorial Day, to Ambien, to thinking that Valerie Jarrett was Saudi. She’s also seen her sitcom’s reboot cancelled and lost all financial and creative stake in the recently announced spin-off.
When Boteach asks her if she still regrets and doesn’t excuse her tweet, she replied, “Of course, no I don’t excuse it. I horribly regret it, are you kidding? I’ve lost everything. And I regretted it before I lost everything and I said to God, ‘I am willing to accept whatever consequences this brings because I know I’ve done wrong.’ I’m willing to accept what the consequences are. And, I do. And I have.”
Turns out Roseanne is extremely sorry. The Blast has obtained audio of the comedian calling into Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s podcast at Stand Up NY and breaking down in tears. She tells the host, “I’m a lot of things. I’m a loudmouth and all that stuff, but I’m not stupid, for God’s sake, and I never would have wittingly called any black person … say they are a monkey. I never would do that! And I didn’t do that. And if people think that I did that it just kills me. I didn’t do that, although they think I did. And if they do think that I am so sorry that I- ya know, it was so unclear and stupid. I’m very sorry but I don’t think that, I never would do that.”
The “that” in this case is a now infamous tweet Roseanne wrote where she talked about former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett thusly: “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj”, she has since blamed this tweet on everything from Memorial Day, to Ambien, to thinking that Valerie Jarrett was Saudi. She’s also seen her sitcom’s reboot cancelled and lost all financial and creative stake in the recently announced spin-off.
When Boteach asks her if she still regrets and doesn’t excuse her tweet, she replied, “Of course, no I don’t excuse it. I horribly regret it, are you kidding? I’ve lost everything. And I regretted it before I lost everything and I said to God, ‘I am willing to accept whatever consequences this brings because I know I’ve done wrong.’ I’m willing to accept what the consequences are. And, I do. And I have.”
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