History ScrewedByTheNetwork / LiveACtionTV

* [[ScrewedByTheNetwork/{{FOX}} FOX]]

** ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'', which survived the initial mass culling, was canceled after two years. It was one of the galling of all, as it had been one of the longest-running black-led sitcoms at the time of its end. Although the Writers' Strike was partly to blame, its fate dispelled any doubts that The CW was trying to focus solely on its white audiences.

* ''Series/TheGame'', spin-off of the aforementioned ''Girlfriends'', was canceled after three seasons despite getting solid ratings. BET then picked it up and gave it another go. For six whole seasons. Its debut on BET was the highest-rated sitcom premiere on cable TV in history, [[LaserGuidedKarma making the CW look foolish as a result]].

* ''Majors and Minors'', a musical competition show on Creator/TheHub, suffered from InvisibleAdvertising, despite promotion online and having several famous names like Music/AvrilLavinge and Jordin Sparks working on it. The show ended after four months as a result, making it the network's shortest-running show.

[[folder:MTV/VH1]]

[[folder:TF1 (France)]]

* ''Series/SledgeHammer'' passed under the radar in Britain as while various ITV regions bought the show, it was never seen in London where both Thames and London Weekend rejected it for screening.[[note]]The Television & Radio Database - for British listings, suggest his ''did'' run in the London area... like ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' it aired on London Weekend in an after-midnight slot.[[/note]] (And yet Thames had no qualms about subjecting luckless viewers to ''Series/DustysTrail''.) This illustrates the sad fact that in this respect, BritainIsOnlyLondon. It doesn't matter how good or worthwhile an imported TV show is - if it isn't screened in London where the decision-makers and the big-name critics are, you might as well forget it. In TheEighties and TheNineties,
Granada also screened some fantastically good cop shows from France and Germany - but these passed without a ripple as they were only being seen in unfashionable backwater places like Manchester and Liverpool. Three decades later, [[Creator/{{BBC}} BBC4]] rediscovered non-American crime shows...

* ''Series/SledgeHammer'' passed under the radar in Britain as while various ITV regions bought the show, it was never seen in London where both Thames and London Weekend rejected it for screening.[[note]]The Television & Radio Database - for British listings, suggest his ''did'' run in the London area... like ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' it aired on London Weekend in an after-midnight slot.[[/note]] (And yet Thames had no qualms about subjecting luckless viewers to ''Series/DustysTrail''.) This illustrates the sad fact that in this respect, BritainIsOnlyLondon. It doesn't matter how good or worthwhile an imported TV show is - if it isn't screened in London where the decision-makers and the big-name critics are, you might as well forget it. In TheEighties and TheNineties, ITV Granada also screened some fantastically good cop shows from France and Germany - but these passed without a ripple as they were only being seen in unfashionable backwater places like Manchester and Liverpool. Three decades later, [[Creator/{{BBC}} BBC4]] rediscovered non-American crime shows...

* The treatment of ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' in the United Kingdom was harsh, to say the least. In 1994, ITV picked up the rights to air the show and didn't promote it as often as their other preschool programmes like Tots TV, Sooty, or ''WesternAnimation/MagicAdventuresOfMumfie''. When it did air, it aired at 7:00AM on a Saturday with little promotion and would often be preempted. The Children's Channel was a little nicer with the show, airing it daily-but at the same time as CiTV's preschool shows! Unfortunately, at the same time [=TCC=] went off the air, CiTV moved Barney to 5:30 AM on weekends, and it was canceled 2 months later.

** Subverted for most of Series 10. BBC Controller Charlotte Moore [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/55e94ef2-0282-494f-a62c-82bd514f02fe announced]] in early 2016 that Series 10 would air in Spring 2017, meaning the only new episode airing during 2016 was the annual ChristmasEpisode for 2016 -- the first time a ''whole year'' passed with no new ''Who'' episodes or specials since the show's revival. The subversion is that this was to prevent the show being upstaged by national events like the Olympics and Euro Cup and allow it to return to the springtime airings, avoiding the main problems Series 9 faced as outlined above. It also allowed showrunner Creator/StevenMoffat (who wasn't too bothered) to work on the fourth season of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' and the new ''Who'' spinoff ''Series/{{Class}}'', which he also was executive-producing, without becoming overworked; the TroubledProduction of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]" in Series 6 explains why this is a good thing. Sadly, despite excellent reviews, the ratings still wound up hitting series lows by the end of the run, and finally the BBC again blew major spoilers for the SeasonFinale -- this time ''months'' in advance.

** ''Series/Class2016'', a spinoff that launched on the BBC 3 online channel and later had a turn on BBC One, was given almost no advertising and ludicrously odd timeslots for a young adult show -- by some accounts, this was due to the fact that there were precisely [[WhiteMaleLead zero straight white men]] in the regular cast, although there are more convincing reports that BBC executives weren't comfortable with the show's graphic violence and casually positive attitude to teenage sex. (BBC America treated it better by giving it the ''Series/DoctorWho'' Series 10 lead-out spot the following year.)

** Then several years later, it happened again to the BBC-led revival. It was cancelled out of nowhere to "make room for new and exciting programs" after three successful series (with Series 10 in particular being considered one of the greatest ones the show ever had) and just after starting to do International events (including a notable {{crossover}} with Michael "Fuzzy" Mauldin from ''Series/{{Battlebots}}''), finally acknowledging the existence of the original series again, and the new toy line starting to take off. Needless to say, the resulting fan outrage was apocalyptic.

* Programme creator Phil Redmond felt that this was the very reason that his SoapOpera ''Brookside'' was canceled by Creator/Channel4 in 2003.

** Then several years later, it happened again to the BBC-led revival. It was cancelled out of nowhere to "make room for new and exciting programs" after three successful series (with Series 10 in particular being considered one of the greatest ones the show ever had) and just after starting to do International events (including a notable {{crossover}} with Michael "Fuzzy" Mauldin from ''Series/{{Battlebots}}'') and acknowledging the existence of the original series. The resulting fan outrage was apocalyptic.

* ''Series/SledgeHammer'' passed under the radar in Britain as while various ITV regions bought the show, it was never seen in London where both Thames and London Weekend rejected it for screening. (And yet Thames had no qualms about subjecting luckless viewers to ''Series/DustysTrail''.) This illustrates the sad fact that in this respect, BritainIsOnlyLondon. It doesn't matter how good or worthwhile an imported TV show is - if it isn't screened in London where the decision-makers and the big-name critics are, you might as well forget it. In TheEighties and TheNineties, ITV Granada also screened some fantastically good cop shows from France and Germany - but these passed without a ripple as they were only being seen in unfashionable backwater places like Manchester and Liverpool. Three decades later, [[Creator/{{BBC}} BBC4]] rediscovered non-American crime shows...

[[folder:Cartoon Network]]
* ''Series/TowerPrep'' appears to have fallen prey to this. According to [[WordOfGod Paul Dini]], after ''Series/UnnaturalHistory''s average ratings, Cartoon Network gave up ''Tower Prep'' before it had even started. They stopped promoting, gave up on recaps, and switched the timeslot to Tuesdays at 8PM.[[note]]It should be noted that when ''Tower Prep'' moved to Tuesdays, its ratings plummeted. But when ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'' premiered ''in the same timeslot'' '''on the same night''', it got [[http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/05/04/tuesday-cable-ratings-nba-playoffs-deadliest-catch-top-night-plus-16-and-pregnant-sports-show-with-norm-macdonald-more/91618 spectacular ratings]].[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

* Creator/GerryAnderson was bitten twice by the finicky syndication market. ''Series/{{UFO}}'' and ''Series/SpacePrecinct'' were two (somewhat) adult-oriented series that programmers couldn't figure out what to do with as they usually associated Anderson with marionette shows for kids. As a result, neither series was able to survive beyond one season due to the US syndication markets not handling them properly.

* ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'': The show's 2020 reunion special, which also doubled as an upfront presentation for NBCUniversal as a whole, saw it's initial NBC broadcast preempted by well over half of the network's affiliates, including (and notably) many affiliates owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, Tegna, Gray Television, Hearst Television and Graham Media Group (as mentioned below), largely as these stations viewed the special as a glorified 60-minute commercial for Creator/{{Peacock}}, and also the fact that the special itself would be airing commercial-free, a fact that did not sit well with these stations, whose advertising revenues had been harshly impacted by the [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID-19 Pandemic]].

* In an example of a station chain screwing over the network, NBC has to deal with WDIV in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}, KPRC in UsefulNotes/{{Houston}} and (more recently) WSLS in [[UsefulNotes/Virginia Roanoke]] being owned by Graham Media Group, the former broadcasting arm of the ''Washington Post'' (under their ownership, known as Post-Newsweek Stations). Long after most American television stations have stopped pre-empting network programming as much as possible under contractual obligations to their networks (and to keep viewers from heaping irrational death threats on their switchboard operators), WDIV, KPRC, and to a far lesser extent WSLS seem to think it's still 1987 and people still love to be nannied by their station's general managers and will accept their shows anywhere they throw them. Several examples include:

* In an example of a station chain screwing over the network, NBC has to deal with WDIV in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}, KPRC in UsefulNotes/{{Houston}} and (more recently) WSLS in Roanoke being owned by Graham Media Group, the former broadcasting arm of the ''Washington Post'' (under their ownership, known as Post-Newsweek Stations). Long after most American television stations have stopped pre-empting network programming as much as possible under contractual obligations to their networks (and to keep viewers from heaping irrational death threats on their switchboard operators), WDIV and KPRC seem to think it's still 1987 and people still love to be nannied by their station's general managers and will accept their shows anywhere they throw them. Several examples include;

** KPRC and WDIV preempt NBC programming much more in primetime than many stations would find acceptable. Though it's laudable that they're carrying local programming in primetime, often this is of little interest to viewers where the stations carry things like flower shows, compilations of their sweeps '(item in your house) ''will kill you!"'' news stories or the terrible 3am movies found on their This TV subchannels which are only re-run on the main signal in three-hour time slots to air gobs of local advertising in blatant cash grabs by the stations. WDIV at least moves those NBC shows elsewhere, [[note]]previously those were moved to another station, the independent 'run for fun' station in the market, WADL...which isn't a solution at all as the NBC programming is then carried in unacceptable standard definition and the signal quality of WADL, even on cable, can be charitably described as 'barely viewable'[[/note]] presently in-house to the station's Creator/MeTV and Cozi TV subchannels, with the consequence of the NBC programming still being carried in standard definition, on top of losing availability on satellite and a very small number of cable providers. Houston viewers rarely get that choice and are stuck with Hulu or NBC.com to catch them. Other preemptions include primetime infomercials and religious specials which in other markets are usually carried by weaker stations.

** KPRC and WDIV preempt NBC programming much more in primetime than many stations would find acceptable. Though it's laudable that they're carrying local programming in primetime, often this is of little interest to viewers where the stations carry things like flower shows, compilations of their sweeps '(item in your house) ''will kill you!"'' news stories or the terrible 3am movies found on their This TV subchannels which are only re-run on the main signal in three-hour time slots to air gobs of local advertising in blatant cash grabs by the stations. WDIV at least moves those NBC shows elsewhere, [[note]]previously those were moved to another station, the independent 'run for fun' station in the market, WADL...which isn't a solution at all as the NBC programming is then carried in unacceptable standard definition and the signal quality of WADL, even on cable, can be charitably described as 'barely viewable'[[/note]] presently in-house to the station's Cozi TV subchannel, with the consequence of the NBC programming still being carried in standard definition, on top of losing availability on satellite and a small number of cable providers. Houston viewers rarely get that choice and are stuck with Hulu or NBC.com to catch them. Other preemptions include primetime infomercials and religious specials which in other markets are usually carried by weaker stations.

** Both KPRC and WDIV had long held firm in not carrying the Kathie Lee & Hoda hour of ''Today'' in any capacity, either in its morning run or in its late-night repeat airing (along with the former overnight repeat of Creator/{{CNBC}}’s ''Mad Money''). The two stations saw fit to keep the fourth hour off the airwaves of southeast Texas and southeastern Michigan, airing news or one of those deadly dull 'local lifestyle shows' which are pretty much long infomercials for siding contractors or roofers, along with insulting 'women's talk' even a Victorian lady would find offensive in place of either run of ''Today''[=‘=]s fourth hour. Eventually WDIV began to carry the fourth hour at 2:00 p.m. By 2019, KPRC began to carry it at its intended 10:00 a.m. timeslot, while WDIV moved it to 11:00 a.m. (one hour later than NBC recommends, but at least it’s a reasonable time slot).

** Viacom's full ownership in the network and the sale of Chris-Craft owned UPN stations to Fox resulted in WPSG in Philadelphia and KBHK-TV in San Francisco becoming UPN's de facto flagship stations (taking the distinction away from WWOR-TV in New York City and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles).

** UPN's parent studio, Paramount, also meddled to make sure UPN's New York area station, WWOR, never carried UPN over its national superstation feed, quickly ensuring both the WWOR's superstation death with a zombie feed of ''Hazel'' and ''Dean Martin Show'' reruns, along with WWOR's local schedule being watered down under Paramount's influence to the point that Fox grabbed it in 2001 and turned it into the market's 'leftovers' station. Meanwhile, their competitor, The WB, was quite happy to let WGN's superstation feed carry the network until 1999 when they had enough good local carriage and had established their viewership much better than UPN ever did. The same behavior befell Los Angeles affiliate KCOP, which was competing strongly with Fox's KTTV in 1995, but by the time it was sold to Fox, had been weakened in a way that destroyed the station's local legacy.

* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'': [[Creator/NormMacDonald Norm [=MacDonald=]]] was fired from the "Weekend Update" segment of this show in 1997 at the insistence of NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer, who claimed that [=MacDonald=] was "not funny", despite his popularity: Norm's appearances in sketches and on "Weekend Update" were frequently greeted with [[ShowStopper extended applause breaks]], to the extent that he once had to quiet down the StudioAudience during a mid-monologue sketch involving host Creator/SarahMichelleGellar by saying, [[BreakingtheFourthWall "Alright, I've gotta do this skit now."]] (One rumored reason for Ohlmeyer's distaste for [=MacDonald=] was the comic's constant quips about O.J. Simpson beating a double murder rap because Ohlmeyer and Simpson were friends.) He later [[TakeThat got his revenge by being asked to host the show a couple of years later]], during which he poked fun at his firing, and said that while he still [[SelfDeprecation wasn't funny]], it was okay because the show had gotten "really bad", thereby making him look much funnier by comparison. When what he should have been fired for was his blatantly transphobic comments on the air.

* In 1985, BBC controller Michael Grade (you know, the one Creator/ChrisMorris called a [[CountryMatters c**t]] in ''Series/BrassEye'') canceled the original series of ''Series/DoctorWho'' (a show he reportedly loathed) until public pressure resulted in the cancellation being modified into an 18-month hiatus. To his credit, Grade allowed the series to continue afterwards but... then decided to fire then-star Creator/ColinBaker. Grade later claimed that he did the former out of spite and the latter out of dislike for the actor's style. Since the Queen is a noted ''Doctor Who'' fan and Grade is the only ex-BBC Controller ''not'' to receive a knighthood, it is widely suspected by the fanbase that a) these two facts are connected, b) it's LaserGuidedKarma.

*** Further proof that AMC has a case: all their hit series, including ''Series/BreakingBad'', continues to score sufficient ratings despite Dish's reluctance to renegotiate. Indeed, far from merely "sufficient", ''Breaking Bad'' scored its highest ratings ''ever'' in the first run of episodes after Dish pulled AMC. ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' made AMC's case even plainer, as its premiere was the highest-rated "entertainment" (read: non-sports) telecast of ''anything'' in the first three weeks of the fall season, as well as shattering its own previous ratings record (5.8 Adults 18-49 rating, vs. a 4.7 for the season finale the previous March) despite Dish having not yet restored the network. Needless to say, it didn't take long (about a week) for Dish to restore AMC once ''that'' happened.

* The ''Series/DirkGently'' TV series was off to a good start. Then it was cancelled due to budget cuts within the BBC. The series was specifically under Creator/{{BBC}}4, which decided to focus on importing foreign shows and cut producing their own.
* In 1985, BBC controller Michael Grade (you know, the one Creator/ChrisMorris called a [[CountryMatters c**t]] in ''Series/BrassEye'') cancelled the original series of ''Series/DoctorWho'' (a show he reportedly loathed) until public pressure resulted in the cancellation being modified into an 18-month hiatus. To his credit, Grade allowed the series to continue afterwards but... then decided to fire then-star Creator/ColinBaker. Grade later claimed that he did the former out of spite and the latter out of dislike for the actor's style. Since the Queen is a noted ''Doctor Who'' fan and Grade is the only ex-BBC Controller ''not'' to receive a knighthood, it is widely suspected by the fanbase that a) these two facts are connected, b) it's LaserGuidedKarma.

** ''Coronation Street'' wasn't the only timeslot killer. Part of the Sixth Doctor era aired at the same time as ''Series/TheATeam'', and Season 18 just happened to premiere at the same time as ITV's syndication of ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'', putting ''Doctor Who'' at its ratings nadir.

** Subsequent historical publications have suggested that Grade wasn't the only person who sabotaged the show in the late eighties: Jonathan Powell, the controller of [=BBC1=], also wanted it cancelled, and has said in interviews that he regrets that he didn't do it earlier. In his case, there don't seem to have been any personal motivations involved, just general dislike of the show and [[SciFiGhetto all genre shows.]]

** The revival debuted on the US [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi Channel]] in 2006 (a year after the UK, and after Sci Fi initially rejected the series for being "too British") and was screwed from the start. Varying minutes of material were cut from episodes for time ("[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]", originally 65 minutes, was cut down to 45), the trailers for the show the channel ran often revealed hefty spoilers, and finally they got rid of the show completely in 2009. BBC America picked it up and have been treating it much, ''much'' better than Sci-Fi Channel did. The Canadian network CBC also mishandled the series after a promising first season in which they even had the stars record unique intros to each episode, but eventually the CBC lost interest in ''Doctor Who'', which was later picked up by the cable network [[Creator/SpaceChannel Space]] and handled much better.

** Series 9 (2015) was consistently scheduled on Saturdays as the lead-out to ''Strictly Come Dancing'' -- meaning it always started after 8 pm, which lead actor Creator/PeterCapaldi argued in a post-season ''Newsweek'' interview was too ''late'' a start time for a family-oriented show with a large kid fanbase. A September start meant the first four episodes (including the once-a-season Dalek story) had to compete not only with shows like ''The X Factor'' but rugby matches. Later in the StoryArc-driven season, the Beeb released '''''massive''''' spoilers about the final three episodes to ''Radio Times'' and the press in general -- even in their own trailer in the case of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E10FaceTheRaven Face the Raven]]", which revealed [[spoiler: Clara's shocking death]]. It's possible they were trying to goose declining same-day ratings, but way to undercut the most acclaimed season since Series 5 for the fans!
** Subverted for most of Series 10. BBC Controller Charlotte Moore [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/55e94ef2-0282-494f-a62c-82bd514f02fe announced]] in early 2016 that Series 10 would air in Spring 2017, meaning the only new episode airing during 2016 was the annual ChristmasEpisode for 2016 -- the first time a ''whole year'' passed with no new ''Who'' episodes or specials since the show's revival. The subversion is this was to prevent the show being upstaged by national events like the Olympics and Euro Cup and allow it to return to the springtime airings, avoiding the main problems Series 9 faced as outlined above. It also allowed showrunner Creator/StevenMoffat (who wasn't too bothered) to work on the fourth season of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' and the new ''Who'' spinoff ''Series/{{Class}}'', which he also was executive-producing, without becoming overworked; the TroubledProduction of "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler Let's Kill Hitler]]" in Series 6 explains why this is a good thing. Sadly, despite excellent reviews, the ratings still wound up hitting series lows by the end of the run, and finally the BBC again blew major spoilers for the SeasonFinale -- this time ''months'' in advance.

* The various ''Franchise/StarTrek'' series were also badly served by the BBC on broadcast in Britain. They were always shown in the early-evening slot on [=BBC2=] and seen as nothing more than expendable filler that could be dropped if any afternoon sports events, such as cricket or tennis or golf, over-ran. In the summer months, they could be dropped completely so that sports events taking advantage of the longer daylight hours could run on; Star Trek episodes were reinstated if rain stopped play, making them convenient filler, and often ran out of sequence. The British premiere of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' was allowed to run for its first thirteen episodes in an early evening slot -- and was dropped, at a crucial stage in the plot, to allow the World Snooker Championships to have the slot. When it returned eight weeks later, the BBC did not pick up where the series had left off: it went back to Episode One and started all over again. None of these things killed [=ST-V=] in Britain, but they did not help either.
* ''Series/TheGoodies'' were shafted by a BBC executive who never liked them. They were denied funding and retreated to ITV, who cancelled them after one season and a Christmas special.

** ''Python'' also suffered, due to its original scheduling time, from the BBC's "regional opt-out", a device allowing BBC regions, at certain times of day, to over-ride nationally scheduled programmes with material of great regional interest, such as ''Cumbrian Dry-Stone Walling Techniques'' or ''Pig Slurry: The East Anglian Farmer's Friend''. Some British regions therefore never even got to see the show on its first run.

* The BBC in the UK showed the first two seasons of ''Series/OrphanBlack'' only a short time after broadcast in the USA, but the third season was reduced to a weekend small-hours broadcast and a ten-episode season dump on iPlayer, with very little promotion, months after it had been broadcast in the US and all the serious fans had illegally downloaded it.

* The BBC picked up the rights to show ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' on their [=CBeebies=] channel after an eight-year hiatus in 2007. Despite Creator/HitEntertainment splitting the episodes in half to accommodate ten-minute timeslots, they did nothing with the show, instead replacing it with their two newest original shows at the time, which were ''The Large Family'' and ''Nina and The Neurons''.

** ''Series/ThisIsWonderland'': A show that garnered a whopping twelve Gemini Awards during its run, the series launched to a massive wave of critical acclaim. After the third season finished, the network yanked it off the air with no explanation.
** Despite having been written by a lauded Canadian author (Douglas Coupland, who remained involved during production), ''Series/JPod'' was treated incredibly poorly by the network, despite the fact that it was exactly the sort of relevant, thoroughly-Canadian drama they promote. It was moved to the FridayNightDeathSlot, and the twelfth episode was never aired — in its place, the CBC ran a half-hour of men's figure skating and a re-run of ''Radio/RoyalCanadianAirFarce'' (which was also cancelled just a couple seasons later for no explanation). ''jPod'' just happened to be the only CBC show targeted at a younger demographic.

** ''Series/{{Intelligence 2006}}'' was cancelled shortly after it won the Gemini Award for Best Dramatic Series (its fifth Gemini in two seasons). According to rumor, it was axed for political reasons: the newly-elected Tory government was looking for an excuse to eliminate the CBC altogether and the elimination of a show with a markedly critical view of the American government was supposedly intended to placate them.

* CBS notoriously did this to '''an entire genre''' of television programs. From 1970-72, in what would later be called "UsefulNotes/TheRuralPurge", the network cancelled most of their sitcoms and dramas focusing on country life or country folks living in the city. ''Series/PetticoatJunction'', ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'', ''Series/GreenAcres'', ''Series/MayberryRFD'', ''Series/{{Lassie}}'', and ''Series/HeeHaw'' were among the shows that got their pink slips during this period, as well as ''The Ed Sullivan Show''; Pat Buttram (Mr. Haney on ''Green Acres'') famously said 1971 was "the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it". Networks began to move away from rural settings to more modern shows set in suburbia and aimed at a younger demographic, such as ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' over at ABC. In CBS' defense, their new shows such as ''Series/AllInTheFamily'', ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow'', ''Series/{{MASH}}'', ''Series/TheBobNewhartShow'', ''Series/{{Maude}}'', ''Series/GoodTimes'', ''Series/{{One Day at a Time|1975}}'', and ''Series/TheJeffersons'' were all successful, often wildly so, with critics and audiences.
** Essentially, this bookends NBC's cancellation of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' — Nielsen's demographic breakdowns of a show's ratings had become more specific between 1969 and 1971, thus if ''Trek''[='s=] early demise (good demos but low overall ratings) was the '''before''', the 1971 CBS Rural Purge (of shows with good overall numbers but lousy 18-to-49 ones) was the '''after'''.
** Similarly, in 1979 CBS canned ''Series/WonderWoman'' and ''[[Series/TheAmazingSpiderMan1978 The Amazing Spider-Man]]'' while never going forward on the ''ComicBook/DoctorStrange'' and ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' pilots... not because their ratings were poor, but because CBS didn't want to be seen as "The SuperHero Network". Only ''Series/TheIncredibleHulk1977'', which, at that time, had just been featured on a very well-received episode of ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood'', survived.
*** If certain rumors are correct, [[LaserGuidedKarma This may have bitten CBS in the ass later on.]] Cue the 2010s, where superheroes and comic properties are less "juvenile embarrassments" and more "sub-divisions of the U.S. Federal Mint" in terms of their overall appeal, and Marvel is looking to expand into television. According to said rumors, veteran Marvel execs remembered CBS's attitude and were adamant that the network would NOT get a piece of the pie. Of course, that history would have been irrelevant since the 1990s, considering Marvel's owner, Creator/{{Disney}}, owns its own mainstream TV network, Creator/{{ABC}}, so there is no reason to show their own property on a competitor's. Furthermore, the competing video-on-demand service to CBS', Creator/{{Netflix}}, had a great reputation for being relaxed about content standards and was eager to get a piece of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse pie.
* ''Series/CrazyLikeAFox'' was a hit as soon as it debuted in 1984 thanks to a plum 9 pm Sunday slot following ''Series/MurderSheWrote''. The show even cracked the Top 10 which was a massive achievement for the time. Midway through its second season, CBS decided to bring back its Sunday night movie showcase. ''Crazy'' was moved to Wednesday where ratings slumped then bounced around the schedule before being axed at the end of the season. CBS then saw how the show was doing quite well in reruns on the young USA Network and so ordered a reunion movie. Even though the movie got very good ratings, CBS still decided to drop what had been one of their biggest hits just two years earlier.

* ''Series/AmericanGothic1995'' premiered at 10:00 PM on Fridays, a fairly-good timeslot. There was plenty of press, promotions, a lot of hype. The show aired, got rave reviews from critics and fans alike...and then, for no apparent reason, scheduling issues began cropping up. Whether the executives in charge at Creator/{{CBS}} changed and wished to do away with the success of their predecessors (though CBS was transitioning from the disastrous cheapskate Tisch era of the network to Westinghouse ownership; the final-year Tisch era had left a Fox-lite schedule with post-NFL transition disasters such as an Andrew Dice Clay sitcom where he plays [[HypocriticalHumor a family man]], ''Bless This House'', and ''Central Park West'' with the new owners), didn't understand how good a thing they had, or didn't understand the show at all, all sorts of problems began plaguing the show. It would be preempted; there would be no episode shown, something else randomly stuck on in its place with no explanation; there would be gaps of several weeks between new episodes, sometimes filled by reruns but usually not; episodes were shown out of order, or never aired at all. Then, without warning, the show was completely yanked from the line-up and vanished for many months. Granted, the show was unusual, not for everyone, and very different from most of CBS' usual fare, but with so many praising it for its daring and disturbing nature, you'd think they'd have gotten a clue. Luckily, the creators knew long enough ahead of time that the plug was being pulled and managed to wrap up the main plot points, but even these final episodes were withheld for a long time before being suddenly plunked on TV one right after another as a three-hour movie "event".

** The show was continually pre-empted, aired on different days (which led to its being trounced by ''Series/PartyOfFive'') and then taken off the network while the show was {{Retool}}ed. When it came back, half the cast was gone and the show's theme was changed to a ''Series/{{Dynasty|1981}}''-esque clone. However, it didn't last even a handful of episodes before CBS pulled the plug for good.

* The US ''Series/EleventhHour'' had consistently good ratings, but was cancelled by CBS because it essentially didn't get the ratings of its lead-in ''CSI''.

* ''Series/GilligansIsland'', despite having decent ratings, was cancelled because one CBS executive hated the premise and wanted to give its timeslot to ''Series/{{Gunsmoke}}'', which was the show that originally was going to be cancelled. Luckily for James Arness, the exec's wife was a fan of the western show.

* The success of ''Series/TheJeffersons'' notwithstanding, CBS still chose to cancel it two weeks after the end of Season 11 (the [[LongRunner longest run]] of any Creator/NormanLear sitcom), leaving Sherman Hemsley to find out in his morning newspaper, similar to how fellow actor Dick Van Patten found out about how Creator/{{ABC}} cancelled ''his'' program, ''Series/EightIsEnough''. They didn't even get to shoot a farewell episode, leaving it to the SeriesFinale of ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' to provide the needed closure, when Louise and George buy the house.

* ''Bridget Loves Bernie'' was ranked #5 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1972-73 season but was still cancelled after that season due to protests given the subject matter dealt with the marriage of [[IrishmanAndAJew a Jewish man and and Irish Catholic woman]], culminating in a failed terrorist attack against one of the producers.

* The very short-lived 2012 lawyer series ''Series/MadeInJersey'' was cancelled after only two episodes. A shame, since it had set out to undo some of the damage wreaked on the state's reputation by ''Series/JerseyShore'' by having the Jersey girl be the heroine instead of the butt of jokes, and by portraying New Jersey and its citizens in a favorable light instead of as cartoonish stereotypes. The New Jerseyans in the series were refreshingly portrayed as being just as noble as their brethren in New York, a nice change of pace from the usual Jersey-bashing fare put on TV by Hollywood and the New York media.

* ''Series/MikeAndMolly'' was quietly cancelled before the sixth season went on air. So quietly that Creator/MelissaMcCarthy found out third-hand from an interview done by co-star Rondi Reed.
* CBS screwed over ''Series/TheNewAdventuresOfOldChristine'' in its last season by cancelling it despite it being their highest-rated show on Wednesday nights (it was pulling in 8 million viewers on average).

* Despite lasting into a fifth season, ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' seems to be falling into this category. Because it is not owned by CBS, they lose out on rebroadcasting rights, meaning they have far less reason to air in than one of their own shows, regardless of ratings. So the fifth season is left to summer 2016 (starting in May) and will be the final season.
** The creators really were screwed. [[https://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/the-triumphant-rise-and-mysterious-fall-of-person-of-interes?utm_term=.rwgrEWmGE#.do4JPek6P According to]] [=BuzzFeed=], they didn't find out about this until the spring 2015 upfronts that they weren't on the fall schedule.
* ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'' did well for most of its run on the network, but it was too expensive to keep it in first run since CBS did not own the show. It constantly had its timeslot shuffled around during the last few seasons.
* ''Series/{{Unforgettable}}'' had Top 20 ratings and was first in its timeslot, but got almost no buzz at all and didn't do better than what ''Series/TheGoodWife'' did the previous season, so it was canceled at the end of the season...only to be UnCanceled for a Summer run in 2013 upon CBS realizing Creator/{{Lifetime}} and Creator/{{TNT}} were kicking the tires of the show to bring it (and CBS "It Girl" Poppy Montgomery) to their network.

* Programme creator Phil Redmond felt that this was the very reason that his SoapOpera ''Brookside'' was cancelled by Creator/Channel4 in 2003.

* The comedy-drama ''Series/SugarRush'' was apparently going to have a third season, but it was cancelled by Channel 4 after the second season, which, while not ending on a {{Cliffhanger}} as such, does end in a somewhat open-ended fashion. Actresses Olivia Hallinan and Lenora Crichlow, who played Kim and Sugar respectively, were among those displeased with the cancellation, and it was later revealed that Hallinan had a contract for a third ''and'' fourth season. The fact that it was rumoured to have been cancelled to make way for the eighth series of ''Series/BigBrother'' did ''not'' help.

* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' was cancelled after five seasons, despite critical acclaim and being one of the few very popular CanadianSeries. Creator/{{CBC}} [[NetworkToTheRescue would later uncancel the show]], where it's been running strong and has since been both the top show on CBC Television and frequently, if not almost always, one of the Top 30 shows in Canada, something that CBC has otherwise been having trouble in.

* The retooling of CNN's sports news flagship show ''Sports Tonight'' in 2001 into a sports phone-in show could either be seen as a laudable attempt to compete with ''Series/SportsCenter'', or a suicidal move by the network to get rid of the last spoke of Ted Turner's 'we cover everything' remit and become a straight news network; the attacks of September 11th, 2001 gave CNN a very convenient excuse to kill the show entirely.

* Rachel Nichols came to CNN from ESPN with the promise of her own weekly sports show, ''Unguarded''. However it quickly became an unpromoted shell game of a show aired late on Friday nights with zero promotion, and with CNN's cutbacks, it was canceled in October 2014. She waited out the rest of the contract with a skeleton crew and signed back with ESPN the first moment she could.
* [=CNN+=] was shut down only a month after launch, putting hundreds of careers on the line including those of high-profile names who were lured away from other networks, such as Kasie Hunt from MSNBC and Chris Wallace from Fox News, with promises of editorial and creative freedom. The explanation given was that CNN management barrelled ahead with the launch of a pet project ahead of major leadership changes and a merger between [=WarnerMedia=] and Discovery without considering the new parent company's streaming plans.

* Didn't tune in on the day a Comedy Central show was broadcast? Too bad, so sad, that episode is [[MissingEpisode lost forever]]. Your only chance is to wait for some random schedule several months from the end of the season's run, usually well past your cable company's guide service, and expect it to run the season incomplete and out of order. The fact that ''WesternAnimation/UglyAmericans'' managed to last more than one season having been treated like this is a miracle in and of itself; most other CC shows haven't been so lucky. This would change with Comedy Central's online presence.

* ''Series/ChappellesShow'' got this in reverse. Dave Chappelle infamously left the show during production of its third season and would only return to the show provided that the episodes that were already filmed weren't shown, as he felt the humor in those shows went beyond making fun of racism and homophobia and actually encouraged it. Comedy Central went and showed them anyway with Charlie Murphy and Darnell Rawlings ([[Film/SpiderMan2 The "Ohhh! He stole that guy's PIZZAS!" guy]]) as hosts. Dave Chappelle not only did not return but left television and movies entirely, opting to focus on his stand-up career.

* The first thing the network did after The WB and UPN finalized their agreement to merge was to can all black-focused sitcoms from its predecessor UPN, the only major network that still gave a damn about them. And can it did; three such shows were canceled at the beginning, while any other survivors were killed off the first few years of the network's life.
** ''Series/OneOnOne'' was the most notable victim. Originally created to replace the similarly-axed ''Moesha'', it ended up suffering the same fate (ExecutiveMeddling during the last season, an unresolved cliffhanger, etc.). The show's fifth and final season aired while UPN and The WB were in serious negotiations, which resulted in the decision for the mass canning. The series was canceled three days after the new network's debut, using the weak excuse that were no available slots to air the show. Of course, nobody bought it.
** ''Series/{{Girlfriends}}'', which survived the initial mass culling, was canceled after two years. It was one of the galling of all, as it had been one of the longest-running black-led sitcoms at the time of its end. Although the Writers' Strike was partly to blame, its fate dispelled any doubts that The CW was trying to focus solely on its white audiences.
* ''Series/{{Reba}}'', despite high ratings, was cancelled by The CW due to the fact the show isn't what is considered the network's target demographic. Oddly enough, The WB renewed it for ''two'' more seasons, but CW, since it was new at the time, only gave it 13 episodes, and aired it on Sunday nights.

* ''Aliens In America'', despite receiving good reviews and having decent ratings, got the worst treatment by not only being moved to Sundays but never even airing the later episodes. Needless to say, its ratings were pretty much destroyed (Doesn't help that the Writers Strike caused the last few episodes of its first and only season to never be finished).
* The CW rented out the Sunday-night slots for the 2008-09 season to Media Rights Capital. The shows — ''4Real'', ''In Harm's Way'', ''Easy Money'', and ''Valentine'' - didn't get any advertising whatsoever. They scored such terrible ratings that The CW repossessed the timeslot and put in reruns of ''Series/TheDrewCareyShow'' and ''Series/Jericho2006'', plus movies. The ratings immediately jumped back to pre rent-a-block levels (although still test-pattern low), and after the season The CW gave up completely on Sundays for nearly ten years and gave the time back to their stations. It returned to Sundays in the fall of 2018, but with only two hours which were easier to program.
* ''Series/TheGame'', spin-off of the aforementioned ''Girlfriends'', was canceled after three seasons despite getting solid ratings. BET then picked it up and gave it another go. For six whole seasons. Its debut on BET was the highest-rated sitcom premiere on cable TV in history, [[LaserGuidedKarma making the CW look foolish as a result]].
* While ''Series/{{Reaper}}'' did get the dignity of a second season, it still got screwed over by CW. Like the many other shows they screwed over, ''Reaper'' suffered mostly through lack of advertising. Go look at the ratings for each season 2 episode — they '''plummet''', and plummet hard, about halfway through. One cast member later mocked the network's protestations of innocence, saying "They say ''they're'' disappointed? ''We're'' disappointed!" and points out how the network basically refused to promote the show.
* ''Series/KamenRiderDragonKnight'''s two-part series finale was never aired; it was put on 4Kids' website to watch. The announcement that the last two episodes would be online was actually made ''immediately'' after the last broadcast.

* The network's "[[https://deadline.com/2022/05/julie-plec-cancelations-legacies-roswell-new-mexico-the-endgame-axed-1235022916/ Red Wedding]]" of 2022 saw the cancellations of ten series (comprising half of the scripted series that were on its 2021-22 schedule), many of which had devoted fan followings regardless of their overall ratings performance. While ratings played a major factor for the ending of some series (like ''Series/Dynasty2017'', which managed to run for five seasons ''despite'' being the lowest-rated scripted series on broadcast TV for most of its run), others (namely ''Series/{{Batwoman}}'' and ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', which were axed strictly because Warner Bros. chose not to continue leases on their respective soundstages, and ''Series/{{Legacies}}'', which is thought to have been canned because of high production costs) were dropped because they became more costly to produce. The spate of cancellations was the result of three factors: 1) CW parents Creator/WarnerBrosDiscovery and Creator/ParamountGlobal exploring the sale of (at least) a majority share of the network to Nexstar Media Group[[note]]The network's largest affiliate group, which acquired several major-market CW stations (including KTLA[=/=]UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, KDAF/[[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas-Fort Worth]], KIAH[=/=]UsefulNotes/{{Houston}}, KWGN-TV[=/=]UsefulNotes/{{Denver}} and WDCW[=/=]UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC) through its 2019 purchase of Tribune Broadcasting, while adding another Tribune-owned CW affiliate (WPIX[=/=]UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) two years later from the E.W. Scripps Company, via its affiliated licensee company Mission Broadcasting.[[/note]] 2) the 2019 termination of a streaming deal with Netflix (which had acted as an additional revenue stream that helped keep many of the shows, like ''Dynasty'', on the air longer),[[note]]Contrary to reports, Netflix bound [=WarnerMedia=]/WBD and [=ViacomCBS=]/Paramount to their existing licensing agreements for individual shows covered by the deal after the broader deal ended, limiting their ability to make them exclusive to their respective streaming services, Creator/HBOMax and [[Creator/ParamountPlus CBS All Access/Paramount+]]. Indeed, many of the affected pre-2019 shows were still available on Netflix at the time of their cancellations, with other series (including most of the scripted shows that debuted after the deal’s conclusion, save for ''Series/{{Stargirl}}'', which was first available on Creator/DCUniverse before moving to HBO Max after the former’s shutdown) being exclusively available on The CW’s proprietary streaming platforms.[[/note]] and 3) the companies' growing difficulties continuing to profit from international syndication sales of CW shows.

* Creator/DiscoveryChannel seriously screwed ''Series/DinosaurRevolution'' — there were originally six episodes planned (plus another six-episode companion series), but for some reason, only a mere four materialized. There were to be no talking heads and no narration, and the stories were to be told purely through the visuals and animal vocalizations...but that was changed too, as the two sister shows got merged together. This format change also caused some confusion among viewers, as the show was meant to be a ''comedy'' with dinosaurs acting like cartoon animals, yet the finished version was presented as a serious documentary. The worst example is the fact that the last two episodes were set to air on September 11, 2011, but were hastily rescheduled to September 13 and moved to the Science Channel, where only a few dino fans managed to watch them.

* ''{{Series/Mythbusters}}'' was bumped to Saturday nights in 2013 in what was seen as a definite attempt to kill the show by Discovery. What confirmed it though was the final episode of the show's 2014 cycle seeing all three members of the build team, Kari, Tori, and Grant given the 'good luck in future endeavors' treatment suddenly at the end of the episode due to alleged 'budget cuts'. Judging from former companion show ''Sons of Guns'' being pulled a week later due to deviant behavior from that show's star, the money from that show could've gone right back to ''Mythbusters'' immediately. The show lasted two more seasons with Adam & Jamie alone and an extreme change in format; thankfully the absolute final episode featured a reunion with all five Mythbusters seeing the show off.

* Sadler would later quit the network altogether in December 2017 after being screwed over in a different way. She found out that her male co-host who’d started at the network only a year before she did and has the same level of education she does was making twice as much as she did.
* In December 2015, ''Series/TheSoup'' ended its run after being on the air for 11 years. It didn't end because of dwindling ratings, mind you. According to host Creator/JoelMcHale, after Creator/ChelseaHandler left E! for Creator/{{Netflix}} and the death of Creator/JoanRivers, E! no longer had a very strong comedy brand. To make matters even worse, E! stopped airing [[{{Rerun}} repeats]] of episodes in order to avoid paying writers[[note]]Which is all but guaranteed and mandated by the [[UsefulNotes/UnionsInHollywood Writers Guild]].[[/note]]. To add insult to injury, E! [[ExecutiveMeddling asked]] the writers of ''The Soup'' to stop making fun of the [[Series/KeepingUpWithTheKardashians Kardashians]], who had become E!'s [[AdoredByTheNetwork golden goose]].

* As of 2019 though, the situation has gotten a little better. Lionsgate bought Starz in 2017, and due to anti-trust concerns, decided to sell their stake in the network. A few months later, Viacom decided to also sell, with MGM buying both stakes, and now owning the network in full. In the meantime, competent executives and creatives were hired for the network and it was decided to veer towards much more original content. The network, also knowing that the price under the three-company ownership was unjustifiable, reduced their carriage price, and also began to offer it in an online form for a very reasonable $5/month. There is a possibility it may re-lose the Paramount library to Showtime with the 2019 re-merger of Viacom and CBS, but at this point without Viacom's management meddling, it looks to be recovering.

* Global constantly pre-empted ''Series/PartyOfFive'' for sports, leading teenage fans to write angry letters to the network demanding that the show air at its intended time. This was especially hard for viewers who didn't have cable to watch it on Fox.

** At times, NTV has screwed over ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' and ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' because though ''Wheel'' airs at 5:00 p.m. and ''Jeopardy!'' airs at 8:00 p.m. on weekdays, both shows have aired in late-night timeslots in the past, when both shows were airing new episodes as opposed to summer reruns.

** ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill,'' ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle,'' and ''Series/GilmoreGirls'' have all had the misfortune of airing new episodes at 5:00 p.m. on Sundays. Since these shows had significant teenage fanbases, this was probably for the better so they could have something to watch while their parents cooked dinner or if they were bored at dinner time (Sunday dinner is a tradition in Newfoundland).
* Global dropped ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' after only a few episodes because of only TWO complaints from [[MoralGuardians parents who believed the show was too violent for children]]. Kids' cable channel Creator/{{YTV}} also aired the show, and they dropped the show after the same number of episodes, leading to a joke from one of the channel's hosts where he made fun of a complaint on the air. Unless viewers had cable so they could watch it on FOX, there was no other solution because the franchise was stuck in limbo for many years.
** When the franchise aired on Creator/FamilyChannel (as part of the Jetix block), it was given InvisibleAdvertising and a very poor early morning, weekend timeslot.

* ''{{Series/Rome}}'' got a bit of this, being deemed too expensive and canceled after two seasons, although they had time to wrap up current plots. HBO execs later admitted canceling it was a mistake, partly done due to a loss of funding from the BBC... see the entry under that folder for how the BBC screwed them.

* ''Series/{{Crossroads}}'' was never a stellar piece of drama and in fact became a by-word for SoBadItsGood. But the death-knell of the show was spurred by the regionalisation of Creator/{{ITV}}. In TheSeventies this meant that [[OopNorth Northern]] regions such as Granada and Yorkshire were six months ahead of Southern English regions in screening the long-running soap opera. [=ITV=] management decreed that national coverage should be harmonised. Rather than giving the south [[CruelAndUnusualDeath double doses of the show]] till the region caught up, a solution was bodged where InUniverse, main character Meg Richardson (Noele Gordon) featured in a special episode. This began with Meg in her office talking to her son Sandy - then she looked right into the camera and started to address the viewers. Sandy looked 'startled' and said something like "[[BreakingThefourthWall you're not allowed do that]]". The character then addressed the viewers directly, summing up what for many British viewers would be six months worth of missing, now never-to-be-seen, storylines, so as to bring viewers up to date. Viewers had been forewarned by the continuity announcer prior to the show that "Noel Gordon was to give a special announcement". But a bad, some might say deliberate, decision by TV execs broke the spell for viewers and the writing was on the wall for this show.

* The treatment of ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' in the United Kingdom was harsh, to say the least. In 1994, ITV picked up the rights to air the show and didn't promote it as often as their other preschool programmes like Tots TV, Sooty, or ''WesternAnimation/MagicAdventuresOfMumfie''. When it did air, it aired at 7:00AM on a Saturday with little promotion and would often be pre-empted. The Children's Channel was a little nicer with the show, airing it daily-but at the same time as CiTV's preschool shows! Unfortunately, at the same time [=TCC=] went off the air, CiTV moved Barney to 5:30AM on weekends, and it was cancelled 2 months later.

* Phil Donahue's exit from MSNBC in 2003, before the start of the Iraq War, is considered a notorious case. Despite being MSNBC's most successful primetime host, Donahue made the mistake of openly opposing the war at a time when the network was still trying to emulate the right-wing jingoism of Fox News. MSNBC fired Donahue because, according to a leaked memo, he was a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war."

* In February 2016, Melissa Harris-Perry publicly complained that MSNBC's coverage of the presidential primaries kept preempting her eponymous weekend show, and refused to continue hosting until the situation was rectified. Instead, MSNBC announced that they and Harris-Perry would part ways, effectively cancelling her show permanently.

* ''Headbanger's Ball'' was a popular show that aired Saturday nights on Creator/{{MTV}} beginning in 1987. The Ball (as it was nicknamed by its fans) aired for two hours and played hard rock, HeavyMetal, and HairMetal music videos. The show also featured interviews with musicians as well as "road trip" specials where the cast of the show would accompany bands to various locations around the world. It was one of the most popular shows on MTV and for a while was one of the network's flagship shows. The show even remained popular during the 1990s, when alternative rock and hip-hop became the most popular genres of music. But in January of 1995, ''Headbanger's Ball'' was abruptly cancelled without warning. The host of the show, Riki Rachtman, was called by the network and informed that he would not need to come into work the following week. Rachtman pleaded with the network to allow him and the rest of the crew to make a "farewell episode" for the show, but the request was denied. ''Headbanger's Ball'' was {{Uncanceled}} in 2003, but many believe the new version of the show to be inferior to its predecessor.
* ''Series/ILoveMoney 4'' got into a whole heap of trouble here and needs a good amount of explanation to get through. For years Creator/VH1 had relied on the ''...of Love'' series such as ''Series/RockOfLove'' and ''Series/FlavorOfLove'' as their big-hitting shows, but soon a double-whammy pretty much killed off all the different series and spinoffs at once — the first was a general decline in viewers which, while the numbers still made the shows the highest -watched ones on the channel, were still declining nonetheless. The much heavier blow came during the run of ''Megan Wants a Millionaire'' as one of the contestants, Ryan Jenkins, was found to have murdered a model and escaped the country, later found to have shot and killed himself. This caused the mid-season cancellation of the series and also shelving of the spin-off series ''I Love Money'' for which two back-to-back seasons had been shot (Season 3 containing Jenkins himself, rumored to have won the entire thing making any edit job impossible).
** Soon, however, ''I Love Money 4'' began appearing in the schedules without so much as a mention from Creator/VH1 other than the show being listed in production company Endemol's overseas ordering system. It was released quickly and quietly in the 11pm dead-zone and then through the series run, shifted from Wednesday to Thursday and back again to 10pm and back to 11pm once more.
*** Amusingly, because of a large word-of-mouth campaign, the viewing figures actually held up well and more often than not beat out the viewership of many of the highly pushed main shows. Creator/VH1 however still didn't take any notice and apart from a ''Rock of Love - Where Are They Now?'' special (which once again beat all other highly-pushed shows on the week), they seem to have ignored the series now as a whole.
* A likely justified screwing came with MTV's ''Happyland'', a 2014 dramedy based in a Disney-esque theme park which had a plot where the lead character may be having a romantic interest in her previously-unknown half-brother, a relationship she does not know she holds. The network attempted to market it as a serious companion to ''Series/{{Awkward}}''. After said lead actress decided to make light of said plot point at the summer critic's tour by commenting that "incest is hot, and we’re going to have fun!", any goodwill the show had immediately evaporated and it became known among TV critics on Twitter as 'that incest show' and the butt of many jokes among the TV Twitterati (along with the "in" obsession that year of the [[MoralGuardians Parents Television Council]]). The network gave up any attempt to market the show, put it at an 11pm slot usually reserved for repeats and shameful shows, and ''Happyland'' ended quietly after its first season with no buzz or fanbase to speak of.
* Special mention goes to ''Series/FindingCarter'' which MTV canned after two seasons due to low ratings after ending its second season on a cliff hanger. the number of episodes ordered was cut in half for the second season.

* Creator/BettyWhite's 1950s variety show ''The Betty White Show'' featured a black tap dancer, Arthur Duncan, which didn't fly too well in those days with the southern affiliates. White, in no uncertain terms, told the network where they could shove their criticism and gave Duncan ''even more'' airtime. NBC responded by bouncing the show between numerous time slots, which affected its viewership, before cancelling it at year's end.
* ''Series/BionicWoman'': The 2007 version didn't set the world on fire, but NBC nonetheless said it was sticking by the series when production and broadcast had to be halted due to the Hollywood writers strike. Cast members for upcoming episodes were announced, and NBC indicated several times that the show would be allowed to at least complete its 13-episode commitment. A DVD set of the episodes that had been aired was commissioned and promoted as "Season 1 Part 1". But this apparent show of support disappeared after a couple of months and NBC cancelled the show anyway. (There are likely other series impacted similarly, and to be fair there were likely other issues such as actor availability at work in the decision to cancel, but this example is notable for the public show of support given the series before the network turned its back on it, thereby, if nothing else, casting the ''impression'' of it being screwed.)
* ''Series/BoomTown'': This show was an interesting experiment. It featured numerous characters, overlapping storylines, out-of-order timelines, and unusual visual techniques. It could conceivably have caught on as a cult show but unfortunately it didn't find an audience. NBC deserves credit for trying something different and for bringing the low-rated show back for a second season. However, the show was given a [=retool=] by NBC in season 2, removing most of the unique elements in an attempt to make the show more like ''Series/LawAndOrder'' in hopes of getting similar ratings, but they cancelled it anyways and refused to air the remaining season 2 episodes.
* ''Breakthrough with Tony Robbins'': Airing in Summer 2010, was screwed by NBC because it was the last program approved (for midseason) by programming non-wunderkind Ben Silverman before the merciful end of his tenure as president of the network. As anyone in the entirety of both NBC Universal and the universe but Ben and Tony knew nobody was going to watch what was pretty much a one-hour {{infomercial}} in primetime, the program got a cheap budget, the infamously lousy Tuesday at 8pm timeslot, and was absolutely not promoted at all beyond the required synopsis and a ''Series/{{Today}}'' fourth hour interview with Robbins (you get into Hota & Kathie Lee & Wine territory for a promo interview and you know your show is the network's shame of the moment). It also wasn't broadcast in HD, a KissOfDeath for a program in 2010 unless you're on public access. It died a swift and merciful death after two weeks to be shoved off to shame on NBC.com, with the episodes finally (barely) seeing the light of day on the ever-cursed Creator/OprahWinfrey Network.

* ''Series/{{Community}}'' had a number of staff changes and ExecutiveMeddling that ultimately cast the series to its grave. First, Season 4 was cut from the regular 24 episodes to 13, and the series was then announced for the infamous FridayNightDeathSlot. Adding insult to injury, creator and showrunner Creator/DanHarmon got replaced without his knowledge, and then the series was ''pulled'' before the premiere, with NBC claiming they "wanted to use the new hits on their schedule to better promote their upcoming series". This prompted [[http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgPGvquOF0c a snarky response]] from the show, commenting that even though the show would premiere on October 19, the network "couldn't decide ''where'' to put October 19th." The real reason is that they needed to hold it and ''Series/{{Whitney}}'' to replace other comedy bombs - in ''Whitney''[='s=] case, Wednesdays at 8 in place of megabomb ''Animal Practice''. ''Community'' returned on February 7 to the same Thursday night slot it's always held, once ''Series/ThirtyRock'' ended its run. Needless to say, the show was cancelled by NBC at the end of its fifth season, although several have noted that it's lucky it got to have a fifth season, with its perennially low ratings as a result of the fifth season shakeup. Yahoo later picked the series up for a sixth season in hopes that the series would live on. That hope was shattered when, after the season ended, Yahoo declared it a financial failure and pinned it for having to write off $42 million in earnings, ultimately taking down its Yahoo Screen service and a couple of other shows with it.

* ''Hunter'': This TV series was cancelled in 1991 due to star Fred Dryer demanding a $50,000 pay raise that NBC refused to pay, though it being on after seven seasons and having several casting changes didn't help either. It did get closure though through several TV movies and was almost rebooted in 2003 as a weekly series again.

* ''Series/TheJimHensonHour'': Despite being critically acclaimed and being nominated for several Emmy Awards, the show aired in the Friday night death slot, right against ''Series/FullHouse'' and ''Series/PerfectStrangers'', where it achieved very low ratings. After four episodes, it was moved to Sunday nights. However, the show performed ''even worse'' in the ratings, and NBC cancelled the series after only 9 of the 12 episodes had aired.
* ''Series/{{Joey}}'': This ''Series/{{Friends}}'' SpinOff got screwed by NBC in its second season when it was moved to the timeslot opposite ''Series/AmericanIdol'' (a fate nearly as bad as, if not worse than, the FridayNightDeathSlot) and of course its ratings soon declined considerably. Even worse, the show was suddenly cancelled mid-season with no warning, leaving eight episodes unaired in the U.S. The only way to see them (other than downloading them of course) is to import the somewhat pricey season 2 DVD from Canada.

* ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'': In its first two seasons, the splashy spy series became one of the most popular shows on American TV and sparked a homegrown variant of [[Film/JamesBond Bondmania]]. For the third season it was decided to capitalize on the then-current "camp" craze popularized by ''Series/{{Batman|1966}}'' and transform ''UNCLE'' into a spy comedy with ridiculous storylines and scenes like one in which the hero dances with a gorilla. Audiences abandoned the series; the decision to revert back to a more serious storytelling model for Season 4 was too little, too late, and the once-popular show was cancelled by midseason. Had the decision not been made to change the tone, there's every chance ''UNCLE'' could have run for several more years.

* ''Series/{{Medium}}'': This show was one of NBC's strongest performers (which isn't saying much), but was constantly put on hiatus and was treated like filler on its Monday lineup. Then CBS picked it up...and wins the FridayNightDeathSlot. The return of Jay Leno leading to the removal of all of NBC's 10pm shows at the time was also a factor.

** In Germany, this show got the worst treatment in existence. The first run of season one was at 11PM on Fridays. The show got cancelled after 6 weeks due to low ratings. Two years later they brought it back at the smart timeslot of 1AM on the night of Friday to Saturday. Surprisingly, it worked, and the show has better ratings than the ten viewers before. They aired two-and-a-half seasons at this timeslot and occasionally had a rerun at Saturday afternoon, which seems to have drowned because of the more popular rival channel having ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' and ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' at that time. They now announced to show the remaining episodes, now on Saturday/Sunday nights at 3AM. I have no idea how a show could generate viewers at these slots, or do they accept Tivo now?

*** Garcia was aware that the show's ratings had declined in Season 4. He asked the network if they were going to renew or cancel the series. He said he could make the final episode of Season 4 a series finale that wrapped up various plotlines or a cliffhanger that would hopefully draw viewers for the fifth season premiere. NBC told him the series would be renewed and he should make the cliffhanger. Garcia did and then NBC cancelled the series.
* ''Series/TheNewNormal'': This show was cancelled after only one season due to mixed reviews and controversy over it's crude humor and dialogue. The only consolation fans got was that the season had wrapped up neatly with [[spoiler:Bryan and David getting married and Goldie giving birth.]]

* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' aired at absolute random during its later seasons as it aired between Tuesdays and Thursdays on various timeslots, and the seventh season had only ''11 episodes'', as NBC only signed the show for 7 seasons. Luckily, ABC picked it up for two more seasons.

** The [[UrExample granddaddy]] of all ScrewedByTheNetwork examples is this show. After two seasons of middling ratings, Creator/{{NBC}} announced its intent to cancel the show. However, [[SendingStuffToSaveTheShow a national campaign of letter writing]], led by a fan named Betty Jo "Bjo" Trimble, resulted in an unprecedented backdown by the network. NBC renewed the show for Season 3...but also cut the show's budget by approximately half and placed the show in the FridayNightDeathSlot, when the show's demographic was likely to be doing anything but watching TV. Episode quality, and consequently ratings, suffered meteoric falls (although it was responsible for some of the series' most memorable episodes), followed by cancellation at the end of the season.

* ''Series/{{Southland}}'': The show got a fairly well-rated, if not blockbuster, short run for its first season. And then it was cancelled to make way for Jay Leno's ill-fated 10 PM show. Fortunately, TNT swooped in to pick it up.
* In an example of a station chain screwing over the network, NBC has to deal with WDIV in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}}, KPRC in UsefulNotes/{{Houston}} and (more recently) WSLS in Roanoke being owned by Graham Media Group, the former broadcasting arm of the ''Washington Post'' (under their ownership, known as Post-Newsweek Stations). Long after most American television stations have stopped pre-empting network programming as much as possible under contractual obligations to their networks (and to keep viewers from heaping irrational death threats on their switchboard operators), WDIV and KPRC seem to think it's still 1987 and people still love to be nannied by their station's general managers and will accept their shows anywhere they throw them. Several examples include;
** KPRC for years pushed ''Late Night'' in both its Letterman and Conan iterations well beyond sane times, airing it around the 2:30-3:00 a.m. half-hour instead of its regular 11:35 p.m. Central berth for reruns of syndicated daytime talk shows and a rerun of the station’s 10:00 p.m. newscast. Conan mocked this in a [[https://youtu.be/IQs_oRJtcno 1997 segment]] by driving around Houston waiting for KPRC to roll the tape for an episode of his show, talking to locals about it (who had never heard of the show, no thanks to KPRC), and ending the piece by putting in coins into a bus station TV seat to watch it at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. Eventually NBC forced the stations to air the program at its regular time. Carson Daly's show was still stuck in the purgatory of 2:05 a.m., 90 minutes after its regular time. That situation improved a little with Creator/LillySingh's show ''A Little Late'' premiering at 1:35 a.m. in September 2019 (an hour delay), giving the show's title a very true meaning on that station.
** Both KPRC and WDIV had long held firm in not carrying the Kathie Lee & Hoda hour of ''Today'' in any capacity, either in its morning run or in its late-night repeat airing (along with the former overnight repeat of Creator/{{CNBC}}’s ''Mad Money''). The two stations saw fit to keep the fourth hour off the airwaves of southeast Texas and southeastern Michigan, airing news or one of those deadly dull 'local lifestyle shows' which are pretty much long infomercials for siding contractors or roofers, along with insulting 'women's talk' even a Victorian lady would find offensive in place of either run of ''Today''[=‘=]s fourth hour. Eventually WDIV began to carry the fourth hour at 2:00 p.m. By 2019, KPRC began to carry it at its intended 10:00 a.m. timeslot, while WDIV moved it to 11:00 a.m. (one hour later than NBC recommends, but at least it’s a reasonable timeslot).
** KPRC and WDIV pre-empt NBC programming much more in primetime than many stations would find acceptable. Though it's laudable that they're carrying local programming in primetime, often this is of little interest to viewers where the stations carry things like flower shows, compilations of their sweeps '(item in your house) ''will kill you!"'' news stories or the terrible 3am movies found on their This TV subchannels which are only re-run on the main signal in three-hour timeslots to air gobs of local advertising in blatant cash grabs by the stations. WDIV at least moves those NBC shows elsewhere, [[note]]previously those were moved to another station, the independent 'run for fun' station in the market, WADL...which isn't a solution at all as the NBC programming is then carried in unacceptable standard definition and the signal quality of WADL, even on cable, can be charitably described as 'barely viewable'[[/note]] presently in-house to the station's Cozi TV subchannel, with the consequence of the NBC programming still being carried in standard definition, on top of losing availability on satellite and a small number of cable providers. Houston viewers rarely get that choice and are stuck with Hulu or NBC.com to catch them. Other pre-emptions include primetime infomercials and religious specials which in other markets are usually carried by weaker stations.
** Other KPRC/WDIV pre-emptions are inexplicable. Neither market ever saw a minute of ''Series/SunsetBeach'' except on their {{Creator/UPN}} stations, and ''{{Series/Passions}}'' was bounced around for years on other stations in both cities before NBC put their foot down and forced them to carry the soap. Both stations must have general managers who had a terrible night in Vegas once because they absolutely refuse to carry anything on NBC which involves televised poker.
** When over half of NBC's affiliates preempted the 2020 ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'' reunion special during its original broadcast (as mentioned above); KPRC, WDIV, and WSLS were no exception, each station preferring instead to air local good-things specials under the umbrella title ''Something Good''.

** In a tragic and inexplicable move, NBC decided to move this show, hosted by Creator/ConanOBrien, from its regular 11:30 timeslot to 12:05. Because he knew it would push out ''Series/LateNight'', do more harm to ''The Tonight Show'' than help, and because he was just plain tired of being dicked around by the network, Conan threatened to quit the show and leave the network in protest. NBC paid him a penalty of $44 Million to leave while Jay Leno took ''Series/TheTonightShow'' back. Conan was '''so''' badly screwed by the network that ''even his direct competitors'' are furious on his behalf: Creator/DavidLetterman, Craig Ferguson, Jon Stewart, Creator/StephenColbert, George Lopez, and Jimmy Kimmel have all directly reamed NBC for their atrocious behavior.

* ''Series/{{Undateable}}'' is a rare example where the screwing didn't work, it given a summer burn-off with very little promotion from NBC and was absolutely savaged by critics. Surprisingly, it caught on with audiences and did very well for a summer series. Enough for a renewal, albeit with a slightly shortened second season, which picked up steam with a well-received set of [[LiveEpisode live episodes]] that critics found much better than the first season; it went on its third season with all live episodes, and was NBC's comedy flagship for the season. Unfortunately, the third season ended up in the FridayNightDeathSlot, which preemptively shut down any growth it could have gotten. Despite the gimmick of being the first show with all-live episodes in nearly twenty-five years (not since ''Series/{{Roc}}'' in the early '90s had it been attempted), NBC ended the show after the third season failed to rate beyond lukewarm levels.

** This actually served as a plot for an episode of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', with Sheldon upset over the cliffhanger, due to his compulsive need for closure. At the end of the episode, he calls up the show's writer to ask how they would've ended it, only to comment that it was terrible and "no wonder your show got cancelled."
* ''Series/{{Caprica}}''. One of the factors of ''Caprica''[='s=] cancellation was Syfy's decision to re-promote ''Series/BattlestarGalacticaBloodAndChrome'' from a webseries back into a backdoor pilot movie, and choosing to favor it alone over having two ''Battlestar'' spin-offs airing simultaneously.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' was renewed for a fourth and fifth season by Sci-Fi, and the show's writers plotted out Season 4 under the assumption that story threads, including the season cliffhanger, would be resolved in Season 5 because hey, Sci-Fi gave them two more seasons. Four days before production ended on the final episode shot of Season 4 (and several weeks after the actual finale had been filmed, owing to episodes being shot out of order), Sci-Fi abruptly cancelled the series; it was too late to change the finale, and the best the writers could do was sneak in a few extra character beats into the last episode filmed. The writers were given a rare opportunity to wrap up the arc in the ''Peacekeeper Wars'' miniseries (produced independently and, ironically, broadcast by Sci-Fi) but it was still a case of having to take a full seasons' worth of story threads and condense them down into a four-hour miniseries.
** In Australia (where it was made), Channel 9 screwed with it even further — during the airing of Seasons 2-3, episodes were moved (out of order) to 5:30 PM and 11:30 PM...and due to "censorship" of the earlier timeslot edited/deleted over 20 mins on each episode and deleted anything that sounded like a swear word.
* ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' got hit with this badly. From the very get-go, FOX (and later Sci-Fi) tried their best to screw with the show and mostly succeeded by the end of its run. Series creator Tracy Torme was in a constant battle against FOX executives, including producer David Peckinpah, who deliberately forced out Creator/JohnRhysDavies after the latter allegedly insulted him at the show's launch party. FOX and Torme squabbled over everything from the serialized nature of the show to executive oversight, the show was cancelled at the end of its first season (only to be brought back by a massive fan campaign), and the move to Sci-Fi only made things worse. Torme quit in frustration, and Peckinpah made things worse by causing everyone to get screwed over on-set - actress Sabrina Lloyd was humiliated at points and essentially forced out when they brought in new cast member Kari Wuhrer, actors Jerry and Charlie O'Connor were locked in ongoing negotiations with the network over what they perceived to be unfair treatment, Peckinpah himself was demoted out of spite by FOX and the whole situation spiraled out of hand. By the time it limped to the end of its fifth season (a wonder despite the executive meddling), the network used the first opportunity it had to scuttle it and claimed that the actors were let go because of salary issues.

** "Bonnie Hammer = Satan" has been around a while. Ask any ''Series/ForeverKnight'' fan about the treatment their show got on USA Network. The last four episodes were the first original dramatic program on Sci Fi... because Creator/USANetwork dumped the last four episodes on a channel that, at the time, had about 500,000 subscribers.
** Not to outdo themselves, they seemingly swore to repeat history with ''Series/StargateUniverse'' and ''Series/{{Caprica}}'', after a first season in the usual franchise time slot for the former and an inexplicable seven-month hiatus for the latter, both shows were shoved into arguably the worst possible timeslot, Tuesday nights, against some of the most popular shows on television, left to die while the "Sci-Fi Friday" timeslot was given away to...[[NetworkDecay wrestling]].

* The adaptation of ''Series/TheDresdenFiles'' was cancelled because, like so many other Syfy shows, it wasn't hitting the demographic the network wanted (18-to-35 males vs. the female audience the show brought in). On top of that, Syfy was fairly tight-lipped to the production crew as to whether or not the show ''was'' cancelled - at least, until Creator/PaulBlackthorne (who played Harry) jumped ship for another show.
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' suffered the same fate of a network head who didn't care about the show and wanted it dead on Sci-Fi as it did on Comedy Central (see above). In this case, it was Bonnie Hammer, who replaced Rod Perth, a fan of the show who renewed it for a tenth season as one of his final acts. On the other hand, Mike Nelson maintains that one of Hammer's priorities upon taking charge was "I'm going to kill that fucking puppet show", which she did right after that tenth season.

* PTEN, the ad hoc "network" that produced and syndicated ''Series/BabylonFive'', doubly screwed over what was arguably the only show it produced that anyone was watching by cancelling it, then selling it. First the network told series creator J. Michael Straczynski while prepping for the fourth season that he was only getting one more season. This caused Straczynski to remove all the B-plot material from the scripts, resulting in one of the most quickly-moving, action-oriented, you-don't-want-to-miss-this season the show has ever had. TNT buying the show and un-cancelling it left Straczynski with nothing but the "filler" he had excised from Season 4, making the fifth season (which was already planned to be the last) slow-moving and disappointing by comparison.

* One ABC station in northwest Florida aired ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'' at '''3:30 AM''' Central every Saturday/Sunday morning, right between two infomercials. One Creator/MyNetworkTV station in northwest Florida (its sister station) barely aired it in a good timeslot, but it failed...

* Creator/GerryAnderson was bitten twice by the finicky syndication market. ''Series/{{UFO}}'' and ''Series/SpacePrecinct'' were two (somewhat) adult-oriented series that programmers couldn't figure out what to do with as they usually associated Anderson with marionette shows for kids. As a result, neither series was able to survive beyond one season due to the US syndication markets not handling them properly.
** Their treatment in Britain was somewhat similar, with some regions airing ''UFO'' at 8pm while others ran it in earlier slots.

* ''Any'' program that airs on local stations during the college basketball season will get screwed over, as the stations that carry said games know they will get higher ratings and ad-money than said programs usually do. Most syndicators are fully aware of this and generally refrain from airing any new episodes of the shows until the season is over. This means that unless your station that carries the games is part of a duopoly, don't expect to catch a rerun of ''Series/TheJerrySpringerShow'' or ''Series/{{Maury}}'' during February and March. This could change when the Atlantic Coast Conference ends its contract with Raycom Sports in 2019 and launches the ACC Network with Creator/{{ESPN}}, though.
** If you're a syndicated program airing on a CBS station during the March Madness tournament, then unless you are lucky that said station is part of a duopoly with another station with little to show during the tournament (although if the other station is carrying their '''state high school basketball''' tournament, that's another buzzsaw), you ''will'' get preempted. At best, you're sent to a graveyard slot. At worst, you're skipped over entirely.
* Steve Harvey's second talk show was screwed from the word "go". In 2016, after five seasons of solid ratings and two Daytime Emmy awards, Harvey decided to wind down his self-titled talk show in favor of a new one based in Los Angeles, produced by IMG and simply titled ''Steve''. Unlike the previous series, which was a co-production between Endemol Shine and [=NBCUniversal=] (the latter of whom distributed the series and owns the copyright to it), Harvey would have full creative control and own a stake in ''Steve''. [=NBCUni=], who returned only as distributor, was furious at being left out of the arrangement as it meant they wouldn't receive the bulk of the new show's profits. Thus, when the second season premiered in 2018, [=NBCUni=] announced that it would drop ''Steve'' from its stations effective the following year in favor of a new talk show hosted by Music/KellyClarkson, which [=NBCUni=] would wholly produce and own all the rights to. Harvey went on record saying that [=NBCUni=] never told him about the decision beforehand. IMG and Harvey attempted to find a new distributor for ''Steve'', but no one was interested (not helped by the fact that ratings were consistently falling since [=NBCUni=]'s announcement), and the show was canceled in May 2019. Thankfully for Harvey, Website/{{Facebook}} Watch [[NetworkToTheRescue revived the show]] the following year.

* In June 2016, The Church Channel was retooled into a new collaboration with the Australian Hillsong Church called the Hillsong Channel, pushing aside many traditional programs for the more cheerful and youth-skewing views of Hillsong, which seemed especially jarring as it launched the day after Jan Crouch's death. (TBN rebranded it as TBN Inspire in January 2022, distancing it from Hillsong amid controversies surrounding the church.)
* On a couple of occasions, TBN refused to air programs for political reasons. Hal Lindsey, a controversial End Times evangelist, left TBN when the network objected to his Islamophobic commentary, but later returned in a different format[[note]]Hal's original show was titled "International Intelligence Briefing" and was produced by (and thus aired exclusively on) TBN. The current version is titled "The Hal Lindsey Report" and airs on a few other Christian networks, launching on TBN over a year after its debut.[[/note]]. A few years later, Jack Van Impe, another End Times evangelist, removed his program from TBN after they pulled an episode in which he criticized other evangelists, which reportedly violated a TBN policy forbidding personal attacks.
* Mike Huckabee's Saturday night talk show, which launched in 2016, seems especially jarring on a network where politics is usually talked about in definite code in order to get the most money out of their viewers as possible by not angering those whose politics might be different or who loathe being preached who to vote for in a church or faith setting.

* ''Los misterios de Laura'', a series proposed in 2008, was greenlit but only for half a season, which happened to be a success in 2009. A second season was ordered but frozen until 2011. It happened to be a success again so a third season was ordered... except this time they decided to wait a bit longer so everybody would have had time to forget about it, and it was finally released ''in 2014, three years later''. Its future is yet unknown, but the ratings have dropped in the new season. It still got enough traction to get an American remake by NBC, ''Series/TheMysteriesOfLaura''.
* ''Series/{{Isabel}}'' was advertised as the network's next big thing until mere months before its planned release at the end of 2011, when TVE went suddenly mute and the release was pushed back to February and then to the fall of 2012. The reason was a government-ordered budget cut: a show's cost in TVE (which is a public broadcasting company) only becomes official when it airs, so by not airing it [[LoopholeAbuse the cost was not accounted]] and the network could claim less money spent, even though the first season was already paid and completed. By summer the show was considered cancelled in practice and the production company even dismantled the sets. Only [[SleeperHit its very good ratings]] and the entry of phone company ''Telefónica'' as a second producer when the first season finally aired caused TVE to pull a 180º and greenlight a second and third season. Then ''Telefónica'' demanded that none of its produced seasons could be watched for free on TVE's website...

* The series ''Víctor Ros'', based in Jerónimo Tristante's books, was notably successful in ratings and very well received by the critics, much more than the TVE average production. However, the executives decided for some reason it was not succesful enough and cancelled its second season (however, it was UnCanceled later on and its second season is currently airing as of November 2016).
* ''Series/TheMinistryOfTime'', in spite of one of the most fanatical fanbases seen, good ratings and great critics, has been constantly screwed by [=TVE=] for the same reasons ''Victor Ros'' was canned. Only the fanbase pressure ensured Season 2 would actually be made, and this one would have been the last one if it were not for more pressure and Creator/{{Netflix}} coming to the rescue.

** To expand on ''Enterprise'' being screwed over, an ongoing issue with the series was the fact UPN apparently had little control over what its affiliates actually aired. As a result, the series was chronically preempted in major markets in favor of local sports coverage, with ''Enterprise'' (and other UPN shows) being rescheduled to local-specific timeslots that weren't counted by Nielsen ratings. UPN itself also aired a repeat of ''Enterprise'' on the weekend, and this too was not counted in the Nielsens despite anecdotal evidence indicating many viewers were choosing to watch the weekend broadcast instead of the Nielsen-counted timeslot (the evidence for this is provided by series co-star Connor Trineer who, shortly before the series was cancelled, took to the pages of ''Starlog'' magazine to plead with viewers not to watch the weekend showing but instead watch the showing that counted). The fact UPN failed to achieve nationwide coverage was also blamed for the show's lower-than-expected ratings (in some markets it aired on local versions of the Home Shopping Channel!).
** UPN's parent studio, Paramount, also meddled to make sure UPN's New York area station, WWOR, never carried UPN over its national superstation feed, quickly assuring both the WWOR's superstation death with a zombie feed of ''Hazel'' and ''Dean Martin Show'' reruns, along with WWOR's local schedule being watered down under Paramount's influence to the point that Fox grabbed it in 2001 and turned it into the market's 'leftovers' station. Meanwhile, their competitor, The WB, was quite happy to let WGN's superstation feed carry the network until 1999 when they had enough good local carriage and had established their viewership much better than UPN ever did. The same behavior befell Los Angeles affiliate KCOP, which was competing strongly with Fox's KTTV in 1995, but by the time it was sold to Fox, had been weakened in a way that destroyed the station's local legacy.

* ''Series/{{Moesha}}'' was a very tragic example, as the execs at UPN were the ones that demanded the infamous storyline of Frank's infidelity and Dorian being his son, the series creator strongly objected to the storyline and the {{Retool}} and was let go. The ratings sharply declined following the introduction of the infidelity plot, and then UPN cancelled the show on the same day that the cliffhanger season finale aired, leaving many loose ends unresolved (they were supposed to be resolved on the spin-off ''Series/TheParkers'', but that never happened, presumably due to Brandy Norwood getting tired of her character and the show). It's like they had already made up their minds about what they were going to do to the show before the season had ended.

* ''Series/WeirdScience'', which was based on the 1985 Creator/JohnHughes [[Film/WeirdScience film of the same name]], produced 88 episodes over a total of five seasons from 1994-98. Six of those 88 episodes did not air on USA but on Creator/{{SyFy}}. The first two premiered on July 11, 1998, with the remainder premiering as pairs of episodes on July 18 and 25, 1998. It should be noted that the last episode to be first run on USA was "The Genie Detective" on April 11, 1997, which was [[TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment from about a year and a half earlier]]. While not officially confirmed, a possible reasoning behind the abrupt cancellation of ''Weird Science'' due in part to Barry Diller trying to clean up the network's image to sell and make a profit from it.

* The WB screwed ''Series/BirdsOfPrey2002'' [[ExecutiveMeddling by trying to turn it into]] ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' (which, coincidentally, was by the same producers).

* The WB was so quick to cancel ''Run of the House'' that it didn't even to get to finish its first and only season (the last few episodes were only ever aired overseas). It wasn't like the show's ratings were that bad, either, as it had ''Series/WhatILikeAboutYou'' as a lead-in.

** There is also much squabbling about which channel will broadcast the show. For a while it would look like Sesamstraat would move to a paid channel, rather than one of the easily accessible Dutch Public Broadcasting Service channels. According to long time actor Aart Staartjes (who played the role of Mr. Aart from 1984 until his death in 2020), this would be a deathblow for the program, as it was already struggling with the constant schedule changes. He even threatened to quit with his role, as he really did not like all the bureaucratic squabbling happening around it.
** On December the 5th, 2011, the annual UsefulNotes/{{Sinterklaas}} episode was spontaneously cancelled because the live broadcast of a political debate was protracting. The network, not wanting to suddenly stop the debate, decided to cancel the Sinterklaas episode, which was originally scheduled to start after the debate. All the while millions of parents and children were waiting in front of their televisions for said episode to begin, in vain. This decision caused national outrage, with many angry Dutchmen, including several Dutch celebrities, voicing their displeasure on Twitter. The chief editor of Sesamstraat told the newspapers the cast and crew were absolutely livid by this decision, as the Sinterklaas episode takes up a lot of time and money to film, which was now flushed down the drain.

* ''Series/UltramanNexus'' fell victim to this. The series is definitely one of the DarkerAndEdgier installments of the ''Franchise/UltraSeries'' franchise and with its dark themes, including, but not limited to people being eaten alive by monsters, government conspiracies trying to hide said monsters, and MindRape, is actually aimed at teens or young adults like its preceding ''Series/UltraQDarkFantasy''. The network TBS[[note]]This is the The Tokyo Broadcasting System not the American Creator/{{TBS}}[[/note]], however, thinking that Ultraman is exclusively aimed at children, placed ''Nexus'' at a time slot meant for children. This resulted in the show gaining very low ratings, as the intended demographic missed the show due to its time slot and children did not watch the show due to how dark it was. Ultimately, the show was abruptly ended, leading to the cancellation of ''Ultra N Project'' where it was supposed to be part of, but was still fortunate to receive a finale, albeit a rushed one.

** ''Series/UltramanMax'' also had difficulties. TBS and [=TsuPro=] relationship was pretty dreadful at this point. TBS was quite upset about the failure of ''Series/UltramanNexus'' in ratings.[[note]] This is despite the fact the biggest reason for Nexus failure was because the [[NeverMyFault abysmal timeslot the show was given by TBS themselves]][[/note]] however they still had a contract with [=TsuPro=] so they demanded a new show to replace Nexus as quickly as possible, with three months worth of time for preproduction. This caused the series to be extremely rushed and only have 39 episodes made for it and to shelve any movie ideas. And then TBS killed the kid block Max was supposed to air on but for some reason, Max was the only show that wasn't moved to a different timeslot. Causing this LighterAndSofter show meant for kids to be sandwiched in between a morning variety talk show and an hour-long program about Japanese museums. However, despite the struggles, Max was a mild rating success and help the company bounce back after the failure of Nexus
* In the UK, ''Series/LazyTown'' appears to have become this after leaving Cartoonito and moving to Boomerang. The only times it aired were in the dead hours of midnight when absolutely '''nobody''' would be awake, and even then only the revival series was shown.
* The 9/11 attacks resulted in an innumerable amount of preemptions on broadcast networks and cable channels for a number of days after that day in 2001, though rightfully so. It also forced a delay of the start of the television season to late October and early November (along with the Emmys). Some new series never established any promotional momentum out of the attacks and were quickly cancelled.
** PBS member stations adjusted their schedules to accommodate children and adults who were loathe or fearful of watching continuous news coverage (though with extended coverage of ''The Newshour'') with additional hours of children's content and Britcoms rather than their usual primetime schedules.
** ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'', ''Series/WheelOfFortune'', and several other game shows didn't air their premiere weeks due to news coverage pre-emptions outside of select markets. Winnings were still awarded despite their not airing. On the other hand, a daily revival of ''Card Sharks'' (which was already stuck with a poorly-received new game format) lost all promotional momentum and was quietly off the air after Christmas.
** Entertainment newsmagazines having fun covering stories like the Chandra Levy case and shark attacks in Florida quickly found themselves having to shift editorial direction away from topics that seemed crass after such a horrible event.
** Saturday morning blocks didn't air that weekend (example: One Saturday Morning and Fox Kids), or were shuffled around (example: Nick Jr on CBS and TNBC) to allow continuous news coverage.
** Television in New York was in a situation of chaos for at least the next four years, as stations both had to adjust to a "new normal" for their news coverage, and trying to find new transmitter facilities, which were atop the Twin Towers (and resulted in the deaths of their station engineers). Normalcy didn't return until the Empire State Building's facilities were adjusted to make room for multiple analog and digital television stations in 2006.
** It's theorized by anime fans that 9/11 was used as an excuse by Cartoon Network to finally cancel the original 1978 ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' from the Toonami block. The show was put on hiatus with a handful of episodes unbroadcast, along with ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' from the block with the official reason being [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents the wartime death and destruction for the former and certain plot elements for the latter would hit too close to home for audiences in the wake of the terror attacks on New York and Washington.]] After a brief period, ''Bebop'' returned to the airwaves, with two sensitive episodes being stricken from rotation (a third would be discontinued in 2003 after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster), but ''Gundam'' never returned, save for a late-night New Year's broadcast celebrating fan-favorite Char Aznable and to quietly wrap up the show. Fans theorize that it wasn't the One-Year War that killed ''Gundam'', but the dated '70s animation that was turning off younger viewers who had first been exposed to the franchise through ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing''.
* ''Threesome'' had the misfortune to premiere on Russian channel 2x2 just at the time the law prohibiting propaganda of non-traditional (read: gay) relationships to minors had passed. Since the show had an openly gay character, the series was abruptly pulled from air after one episode. After five months the series was brought back on Mondays at 1am, with no advertisement to speak about, and was never seen again.
* ''Majors and Minors'', a musical competition show on Creator/TheHub, suffered from InvisibleAdvertising, despite promotion online and having several famous names like Music/AvrilLavinge and Jordin Sparks working on it. The show ended after four months as a result, making it the network's shortest-running show.
* One of the first indicators that Brazilian network Loading would be a short-lived experiment was how their news show on e-Sports was canned after just two editions, each having something the higher-ups disapproved: the first was a report criticizing a streamer (part of the channel's main financier's e-Sports team) who was possibly freeloading on donation money, and the second was a e-Sports team criticizing Riot Games (a sponsor for the channel). The whole crew was fired, without having even received work benefits yet, and would all state the channel wanted to censor them before the mass dismissal.
* WGN America's run of ''Series/LizzieMcGuire'' and ''Series/EvenStevens'' was this. Originally aired during mid-afternoon timeslots, they were very quickly moved to overnight graveyard slots, a time when the shows' target audiences weren't awake, and then removed from the channel entirely shortly afterward.