Exec spills details on new season of Tim Allen’s ‘Last Man Standing’
Fox Television Group CEO and Chairman, Gary Newman spills details on the new season of Tim Allen’s
The hit sitcom “Last Man Standing” will be standing once again in the new TV season, this time on the Fox network, after ABC unceremoniously and abruptly gave the show the boot last year despite six successful seasons and high ratings.
The show was ABC’s second most-watched comedy, with 6.4 million viewers in its final season. And it achieved this success while occupying a Friday night time slot, where shows typically have fewer viewers.
Tim Allen stars in the hit comedy and plays an outspoken libertarian/conservative navigating life as the married father of three girls while working as a marketing executive for a successful sporting goods store.
By today’s standards, Allen’s character’s views are considered politically incorrect. In real life, Allen’s views tend to lean right of center. But that’s not why conservatives are going to reach for their remotes again on Friday nights this fall.
There’s a considerable market for shows like this – shows that the liberal power brokers who run Hollywood have completely shunned because they’re only interested in content that speaks to people like themselves.
The great irony is that the leftists who control Hollywood preach inclusiveness but are content to exclude anyone who doesn’t think the way they do.
This show taps into the vast forgotten audience. “Last Man Standing” shows respect for everything Hollywood mocks – God, family and good old-fashioned conservative values.
Once a week, people will be able to turn on their TVs and not have their values assaulted repeatedly for 30 minutes. They will just simply be entertained – which is something much of the entertainment industry is no longer in the business of doing.
Hollywood suffers from the same narcissism as much of the news media. Both produce content to appeal to others in their respective industries, rather than to the general public.
Political agendas have taken over where ratings and facts used to rule the day. Meanwhile, regular viewers – the forgotten people in the flyover states – turn on the TVs looking for entertainment or hard news and instead get lectures and politically correct conspiracy theories.
Hollywood has become the place where only one side of every issue is shown. The people who call the shots exist in a self-absorbed little corner of the world that’s far removed from people who don’t think like them. In fact, members of the Hollywood elite have no idea that such people even exist.
We saw a classic example this week when actress Mila Kunis stunningly admitted she had no idea until recently that groups who oppose abortion exist. The disconnect is real.
When he learned that Fox was picking up "Last Man Standing,” Tim Allen said in a statement: “Team LMS was in the sixth inning, ahead by four runs, stands were packed and then for no reason, they call off the game. It leaves you sitting in the dugout, holding a bat and puzzled. Now we get the news from Fox that it's time to get back out on that diamond – hell yes, I'm excited!”
Last year when ABC shocked fans, as well as the cast of “Last Man Standing," by announcing it was giving the show the ax, the network’s Entertainment President Channing Dungey said: “A large part of these jobs are managing failure, and we have made the tough calls and canceled shows that we would otherwise love to stay on the air. That’s the job. … Last Man Standing was a challenging one for me because it was a steady performer in the ratings, but once we made the decision not to continue with comedies on Fridays, that was where we landed.”
Except that wasn’t where ABC landed at all.
It turns out the network will actually continue with comedies on Friday nights. This fall, “Fresh off the Boat” is taking over the timeslot of “Last Man Standing,” moving from Tuesday nights where it only managed to garner 4.2 million viewers last season and ranked 10th out of the network’s 11 sitcoms.
In a rather weak statement Dungey issued a Washington-sounding non-denial denial that Allen’s politics played a role in cancelling the show, saying "I wouldn't say that was the deciding factor.”
The show's huge fan base disagreed. Some called for a boycott of ABC and some signed a change.org petition calling on the network to bring the sitcom back.
Let’s review: a show that was bringing in 6.4 million viewers and was the second most-watched comedy on a network got cancelled and replaced by a show that was doing considerably worse (on a better night) in the ratings game with 4.2 million viewers and was almost the least-watched comedy on the network.
The difference is that one of these shows doesn’t fit Hollywood’s liberal, politically correct narrative – and it’s not the one trailing behind in ratings.
Interestingly, “Last Man Standing” will now be in the same time slot as “Fresh off the Boat” on Friday nights, so they’ll be competing against each other. Stay tuned.
The revival of the hit comedy this fall has fans of the show cautiously optimistic that maybe somebody is finally starting to get it. Most people don’t want their TV entertainment shows to come with a side of insults and agenda-driven opinions. Just the entertainment, please.
Tim Allen said of the show that it “wasn’t constantly trying to have the small segments of the world dictate what the big segments are thinking.”
That’s exactly why this show works.
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