Freeform Out of Scripted Business

[Mark Jeffries]

The two remaining scripted series "Cruel Summer" and "Good Trouble" will wrap in 2024 after their second and fifth seasons, respectively, and all the younger-skewing Disney-owned channel, which dates back to 1978 as the CBN Satellite Network (and was CBN Cable Network, the Family Channel, Fox Family and ABC Family in-between), will have is some unscripted shows, movies and reruns (and the popular Halloween and Christmas movie blocks)--and "The 700 Club," the constant on the channel from Day One:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/good-trouble-cruel-summer-canceled-1235729358/

The channel lost 15M homes earlier this year when Charter dropped it in its war with Disney over carriage fees. The question now is how long Freeform will stay on the air and will it be the first of the long-runners in the first generation of cable channels to sign off.

Also, "Good Trouble" was near the end anyway, but one wonders if Hulu, where the shows have most of their audience today anyway, would've made an offer for "Cruel Summer" to continue.

[M-D November]

I'm forced to wonder - given the insane terms of "The 700 Club" commitment, can Disney even close Freeform down if they want to, or would they be required to find a buyer who will continue to honor the agreement to air T7C in perpetuity for free?

[Bob Jersey]

A sale would be a less painful solution, presuming a Robertson-friendly taker is out there.  If the channel closes, CBN sues for who-knows-how-much, and die Maus could be looking at a breakup. JMHO...

B

M-D November, Dec 12th:

[Mark Jeffries]

Well, I believe Freeform was on the list that Byron Allen had besides ABC when he said he was going to make an offer.  He also had the owned stations to join the other Big 4 network affiliates he already owns, FX and NatGeo on his list. If Allen is successful, I'd be more worried about whether John Landgraf would be willing to stick around at FX--the home of prestige television is an ill match with the man behind "America's Court with Judge Ross" and "Comics Unleashed."

Mark Jeffries
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Tom Wolper]

I was going to say Byron Allen as a joke. If he’s serious about buying the channel he’ll have to convince whoever is backing him financially that the value is going to go up even as the pace of cord cutting is rising.

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