Should Cancel-Happy Streamers Take a Cue from Starz and AMC?

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 15, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 15, 2024 |

This week, the Los Angeles Times has a piece up on how The Walking Dead spin-off, The Ones Who Lives, has managed to buck the trend in franchise fatigue. It’s doing great numbers (for cable), and has actually reversed the ratings erosion of The Walking Dead universe.

If I were AMC — which now believes that The Walking Dead universe can run indefinitely — I wouldn’t get too carried away by the success of The Ones Who Live. It does star arguably the two most popular characters in that universe, neither of whom has been around for years, so it owes some of its success to short-term nostalgia.

What is true, however, is that this storyline could not have existed in the main series. The Walking Dead, which was still the most popular show on AMC when it concluded after 11 seasons, ended not entirely because of ratings erosion but because the ratings could not support the cost of a 12th season. In fact, the 11th season was a ridiculous 24 episodes broken into half seasons instead of an 11th and 12th season, essentially an accounting trick that AMC also pulled with Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Mad Men.

The longer a series runs, the more expensive it is to produce. But what if a series is still popular after three or four seasons, but the network can’t foot the bill for the growing production budget? That’s where the spin-off comes in: The Walking Dead has been able to capitalize on the popularity of The Walking Dead without paying the price for a franchise that’s run as long as it has. It can keep its most popular characters — Rick, Michonne, Negan, Maggie, Daryl, and Carol — and simply spin them off into new series set in the same universe. Now it gets three first seasons — at the cost of a premiere season — instead of a 12th, 13th, and 14th seasons of The Walking Dead.

Television spin-offs are not new, obviously, but the way they’re deployed is. The CEO of Starz, Jeff Hirsh, recently compared the strategy to the NFL salary cap, which is not a bad analogy. It’s exactly what they have done with their Power franchise, he acknowledges. “You look at the [Power] map and say, ‘Okay, if I take one of those characters out and spin one of those out, I can bring that on to replace the Power show at half the cost.’ Now I’m putting a lot of money right to the bottom line. And I’m really not losing anything in terms of acquisition costs and subscriber viewership, because we know what those demos want.

“If you think about our slate of seven to 10 shows. It’s a lot like the salary cap management in the NFL … if you have a special teams player who’s coming off his rookie deal and about to become a veteran … You can go back and draft and pick a rookie, bring them on with a rookie deal and manage costs. Managing a content portfolio of originals is kind of the same thing.”

It’s a cynical approach that screws actors out of raises, but for smaller studios like Starz and AMC, which have to work efficiently, it’s also a smart approach that keeps those streaming networks in business. Spin-offs not only reduce cost but can zero in on the most popular characters and even reignite interest in a franchise (as is the case with The Ones Who Live).

Don’t be surprised if Netflix and some of the other streamers and networks take a cue from AMC and Starz. It’d be preferable if they didn’t kill off popular series after two or three seasons and continue paying the actors what they are worth, but spin-offs of popular characters may be a better alternative to cancelation.

Take NBC’s Superstore, a series that got a healthy six seasons but still had a lot left in the tank. Ben Feldman and America Ferrera may have exhausted their character arcs. Still, I would have watched Dina (Lauren Ash) and Garrett (Colton Dunn) relocate to a new store with new characters in Superstore: Missoula.

Santa Clarita Diet, likely canceled by Netflix over budget issues, is another example. Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore were obviously huge draws. Still, by the end, many of us had grown attached to the younger characters played by Skyler Gisondo and Liv Hewson, who could have gone on their own adventures had one been zombified. Reservation Dogs could have followed Bear and Elora to California or Willie Jack and Cheese to another reservation. And after four or five seasons, when FX can no longer afford The Bear, I’d happily follow Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) to a new restaurant she’s opening in a different city with a new crew.

It’s a smart financial move and a dubious ethical move. Spin-offs have not only proven successful with audiences in recent years, but they have worked creatively, as well, from House of the Dragon to Better Call Saul to Elsbeth and even Bosch: Legacy, which is basically Bosch with a smaller cast. Fox even spun off 9-1-1 into 9-1-1: Lone Star, but when ABC took over 9-1-1 because Fox could no longer afford it, Fox still kept the spin-off.

It’s the future, so prepare yourselves in a few years for Ava, a spin-off of Abbott Elementary centered on its inept principal, Janelle James’ Ava Coleman. An eighth season of Abbott would be preferable, obviously, but if it’s between Ava and nothing, Ava is at least a way to continue visiting that universe.