FX explains why 'Terriers' was canceled

TV executives don't usually like to admit they've canceled a show. In fact, they go out of their way to avoid the issue by saying a show has been taken off the schedule, is on hiatus, or no decisions have been made.

On Monday, FX announced what fans of "Terriers" expected but still dreaded: There will be no second season of the terrific buddy drama starring Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James.

But then something highly unusual happened. FX President John Landgraf held a conference call to explain to the press why he arrived at the "disappointing" decision to cancel "Terriers." It was a thoughtful and detailed conversation that went way beyond the obvious -- that "Terriers," which averaged 509,000 viewers in the 18-to-49-year-old demographic, was the network's lowest-rated show ever.

"I really appreciate the fans that showed up weekly for this show and poured their passion into it and sent thousands of e-mails to us. … And I think, in general, I’ve really tried to run this channel, this network, in a much more transparent way," Landgraf said, explaining why he made himself available to the press Monday. "It runs transparently internally. We’ve all been very open with the creative people that come to work here, and we’ve tried to be more transparent with the press.

"The reality is that, even though nobody wants to dwell on it -- this is like batting in major league baseball," he said. "Nobody bats a thousand. There are creative successes that are commercial failures and commercial successes that are creative failures, and every once in a while you hit them both. And FX is confident enough in its overall track record that it’s OK. We open up the books, and we have an honest conversation about the times things don’t work. My estimation is that that’s better for everybody up to and including [the press] who don’t have to speculate about why we did something or didn’t do something else."

So, how did Landgraf arrive at the decision?

After the show's third episode aired, Landgraf ordered a poll of 600 people who had never seen promos for "Terriers" and had never watched an episode. Many critics and TV writers, including this blog, have attributed the show's low performance to its title and FX's marketing campaign, which included outdoor ads that highlighted a mean dog more than it did the two stars of the show and may have confused people about what the show was really about. (There, in fact, was no mean dog on the show, but as creator Ted Griffin explained to the Los Angeles Times last week, he came up with the title because of the scrappy quality of the characters).

Of the 600, 200 were hard-core FX drama followers, 200 preferred USA/TNT dramas, and 200 liked light dramas and identified with no particular network. The audience ranked the promos, watched episodes and then ranked the promos again, and they agreed that they liked the episodes and the marketing represented the show well.

Those polled, Landgraf said, thought "Terriers" was compatible with FX's brand "but not similar to other FX shows.  And to the extent that it was dissimilar — they found it to be a little less edgy, less sexy, less suspenseful. I think the things that were really wonderful about the show tended to be relatively subtle. It had a subtle charm that kind of crept into your psyche over time, and you got to like it more. I don’t know if subtlety is something the American public is buying in droves today.

"When I look at ‘Jersey Shore’ and ‘The Kardashians’ and ‘Sons of Anarchy’ and 'The Walking Dead,' you know, we can go on and on and up to and including what is selling in the political space in America, I wouldn’t say that subtlety and nuance describes the most successful pop content in America today," he said.  "If you want to know what it revealed, it revealed that those subtle charms took a little while to get a hold of people and that’s a hard thing to sell."

For those who like hard numbers, here's the hard truth FX was facing:  "Terriers" didn't even come close in ratings to other dramas FX has canceled.

In the primary telecast among 18-to-49-year-olds, "Dirt" averaged about 1.6 million people, "The Riches" averaged 1.4 million, "Over There" garnered 1.3 million, and "Damages" had 1.1. million viewers.  "Terriers" averaged 509,000 viewers.

Taking encores into account: "Dirt" registered 3.7 million viewers, "The Riches" had 3 million, "Over There" had 2.9 million, and "Damages" had 2.4 million. "Terriers" averaged 1.6 million.

"Those numbers are even significantly lower than many shows that we canceled after one season, like ‘Over There’ or ‘Dirt’ and ‘The Riches,’ which ultimately didn’t go the distance. You could have double the ratings and it would still be the lower-rated of all those," Landgraf said.

Landgraf half-joked that if he renewed the show, he would have changed the title to "Terriers, P.I." but said he really didn't believe that changing the title and increasing marketing would do the trick. The billboards with the mean dogs, Landgraf said, only were displayed in Los Angeles and New York City.

"If I legitimately believed that the reason the show didn’t succeed on our air was that we felt we failed to adequately describe to the audience what the show was about, that would have been reason alone to renew it," he said. "One of the reasons I spent a lot of money and had people spend a lot of time doing a postmortem analysis is because the question was: Was the marketing campaign fair to the show? There are plenty of people in Los Angeles who drove by various billboards and are always going to say 'no,' but the reality is they don’t understand the reality of how everyone else in America was presented this show. So from my standpoint, if we did market the show, how would I believe that putting the show on air would miraculously triple or quadruple ratings, which is what it would need to be to be successful?

"I just couldn’t find any way from a business standpoint or quantitatively how to do a second season of the show," he said, "and that’s really unfortunate because I love it, but that’s the reality."

It is indeed unfortunate for the small but loyal group of fans that fell in love with Hank (Logue) and Britt (Raymond-James) and were left wanting more.

Here's one tidbit Griffin offered: At the end of the season (now series) finale,  Hank and Britt went straight.

--Maria Elena Fernandez
twitter.com/writerchica

Photos, from top: Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James in "Terriers." Credit: Mike Muller / FX. Logue and Raymond-James. Credit: Patrick McElhenney / FX

RELATED:

"Terriers creator Ted Griffin hopes FX will give show another shot"

 

Comments

[Viznix]

No knock on the president of FX, because he is running a very successful cable station, but it was absolutely the marketing that killed the show. I live in Oregon, so I never saw the billboards he is speaking of. I only saw the TV promos. I had no clue what the show was about, and almost skipped it because the ads annoyed me. The only reason I watched, is there was nothing else on that night, and I rather like Donal Logue. So I gave it a shot.

I didn't know if the show was about gun running, selling drugs, dog fighting, surfing, ect... but that is what I picked up from the commercials, and NONE of that was in the show.

I don't regret watching, and now am sad to see the show die so early. It was a really great show, and in my opinion, second only to Sons of Anarchy as the best show on TV.

[Rocco]

Great show. Sad day.

[vernon salyer]

I,m a 72 year old male who doesn't watch dancing with the stars or american idol.We shall miss the unusual,quality, well written series that engaged the brain as well as entertained. It will probobly be hailed in re runs and recognised for it's genius. It is so sad everything must be dumbed down and played to the masses. At least we still have P B S .

[Joe]

:( as someone who emailed FX pertaining to a season 2 of 'Terriers', this is a sad day. This show trumps so many other shows on FX. Sadly, the marketing ruined it and this really pisses me off.

[Melissa]

I love FX, I think it's the best network out there, but he is dead wrong about the marketing aspect.

The only reason I even heard of Terriers is because I follow Kurt Sutter on twitter. He mentioned something to Shawn Ryan on there, I saw Shawn Ryan (who I never heard of before) was from Chicago like me, started following him and decided to check the show out because of that.

I never paid attention to the two or three promos I saw on FX for Terriers and I NEVER saw any other advertising for it around Chicago. Even friends who religiously watch FX shows had never heard of Terriers until I brought up the dog and then it was ' Oh! The Dog with the Teeth? I'll pass'.

Poor marketing ruined this show. Nobody heard of it, and those who did remembered a dog with teeth.

[Lois Cowan]

I, well older than the target audience, tried to tell people to watch—I loved "Terriers."

Since the title had no connection to the show that I could discern, I never remembered it. Puppies? Fat Cats? What? I didn't remember what channel it was on, and missed it several times. Too bad. Too dumb.

One lone soul here in Key West—I'll miss it.

Lois Cowan

[Sep924]

No-o-o-o-o! I truly loved this show! And I agree that the idiotic ads killed it (never saw the billboards). This was a smart, suspenseful, sensitive, terrifically acted show and deserves a second season. Please, please, FX, give a just a little more time. I've never understood why networks are so quick to ax a show so quickly. God, this really sucks!

[Steve]

I really liked the show except for the fact that they were not licensed. You have to be licensed to work as a P.I. in California, everyone knows that. To have an ex-cop do this without a license was just stupid. I usually taped it because it was on too late in the evening. I look forward to other fine programming from FX.

[Bart]

My favorite show on TV. Very sad to see it go.

[Lucas Corso]

FX, and its president, can rot in hell. I officially boycott FX from this day forward. Something like Terriers really tests a network's commitment to quality. FX showed its stripes. I'm done. And I encourage others to follow suit. I know Justified is a good show. I know SOA is too. Which will make a boycott difficult. But I'm doing it. They canceled the best show on television because FX's advertising didn't give it a fair chance to find an audience. That makes FX a whore, in my book. Goodbye FX.

[Mark Mohr]

I applaud John Landgraf for having the courage to greenlight "Terriers" in the first place and at least giving it a chance. The actors and locations were terrific but the advertising and marketing were terrible. I have several friends in San Diego who didn't have a clue that this show even existed. Instead of peppering the Los Angeles landscape with confusing billboards touting a TV show 120 miles to the South, perhaps a more successful marketing campaign would have been to focus on other areas of the country. I watch FX all the time, and I didn't see that many promos for the show, so it couldn't have been a high priority for the FX programming gurus. R.I.P. Terriers, but I certainly will be on the lookout for future shows featuring Donal Logue, Michael Raymond James, and the other members of the talented cast.

[Susan]

I loved this show, but in Colorado it was on at 1:00 am. I can't believe that FX was serious about promoting this show.

[JC]

Great Show, too bad they screwed up the marketing.
I wish they could get that right, it seems Damages had a similar fate (after 3 seasons). I started watching Damages on DVD after I had heard so much about it.
Everyone I have turned on to Terriers loves it.

[Bruce Miller]

Truth be told, Terriors was better than Sons of Anarchy this year. Terriors had a great pace and fantasitic acting. We knew the show was not getting the numbers and would be cancelled so we savored every episode. Maybe someone with deep pockets who believed in the show will pull a Family Guy type thing and it will be revived through another production company and network. 500k viewers just doesn't cut it I guess. Another year and maybe name change and better promos and the show would probably have a five year run. Easy to say from my computer. I am envious for all out there who will stumble on Terriors in DVD form and enjoy the hell out of it. I'm hoping that word of mouth will throw off some eye popping DVD sales and on line renting and one of the aformentioned networks will take notice and revive Terriors.

[elvismathews]

I too am saddened by the news...but ratings are generated by the simple minds of tv watchers, who can not carry on a deep conversation with anyone, because they live at the surface level in all that they do...reality tv is their "Hallmark"...pretty sad...

[Sheila G]

The marketing was absolutely to blame for the demise of this show! I watch FX all the time and thought it was about dogs! I didn't catch up with it until Episode 7 and then I was hooked. Great cast, great writing, great characters. So what if it wasn't over the top violent or had a lot of sex? You can get that anywhere. Smart, funny, poignant, and real? Give me back my Terriers!

[Sheila G]

If you aren't convinced check the EW magazine website. They posted a list today of the 10 Top One Season Wonders in television. Minutes after this announcement they changed it to 11 Top One Season Wonders and included Terriers!

[Kim Kay]

Sad to read this, I really enjoyed Terriers, wish they could have given them another season to build the audience.

[Heisenberg]

Donal Logue = quite irritating

[Betty]

I'm in Canada. How did I hear about the show? Word of type... from Tom and Lorenzo's 'Project Rungay' blog commentators.

How did I watch the show? A backdoor through the US iTunes site. I bought the whole season.

I really wish FX would have used the run to explore how many *more* viewers the show had through non-traditional methods as a determining factor. At the most, it may have spurred them to continuing the series and to expand their definition of 'viewership', at the least, it would have been interesting info to throw at rabid fans.

The show is like a really good novel spilled over 13 hours and I'd love to see the sequel. Maybe, with any luck, it'll make some kind of resurrection months down the line like 'Southland'? That would be most satisfying, too.