TV

Amazon Quells a Revolution by Cancelling Good Girls Revolt

By  · Published on December 6th, 2016

Another good show is gone too soon.

Same, ladies. Same

Looks like Amazon was not ready for the revolution Good Girls Revolt was looking to lead. Earlier this week, Deadline reported that the streaming service Amazon will not be moving forward with a second season of Good Girls Revolt. The series was inspired by Lynn Povich’s book of the same name and followed a group of young female researchers in 1969 battling newsroom sexism while working at the fictional News of the Week. The announcement was met with outcries and admissions of defeat from the cast and crew who compared the cancellation to Hillary Clinton’s recent loss in the presidential election. Series creator, Dana Calvo, tweeted “So grateful we got to tell the story. We won the popular vote. Thank you.” One of the stars, Genevieve Angelson followed suit with another election reference saying that “Your roars of support elevated me from the darkest election in history and I’ll never stop fighting back for us.”

The show aired for one season that garnered generally positive reviews and had pretty good viewership numbers. So what gives? Why the cancellation, Amazon? It seems like a rather hasty decision given that the first season only premiered on October 28th. However, even in that short amount of time, data showed that about 80% of the people who watched the pilot continued to the end of the last episode. Streaming networks draw in much of their audiences because of the leniency with which their shows can be watched. Viewers can tune in at their leisure and build up a loyal following, but Amazon cancelling Good Girls Revolt so quickly says the exact opposite: viewers need to watch ASAP.

The show also attracted a highly specific audience, which is important for a streaming network with only so much original content. According to Deadline, Good Girls Revolt had the second highest amount of female viewers for an Amazon original at around 67% (second to Man in the High Castle which boasts about an 80% for the demographic). Calvo said in an interview with BuzzFeed news that “based on data provided to us from Sony, Symphony Advanced Media reported our show was a hit… We had twice Transparent’s audience.” But even with all the positives going its way, Amazon Studios head Roy Price was reportedly not a fan of the show and did not see it becoming the major awards player he had hoped it would be.

Perhaps another reason Amazon nixed it is so that they can focus more on attracting bigger names behind and in front of the camera. Woody Allen’s first television show premiered on the streaming service earlier this year, but don’t expect a second season from him though because he is never doing television again. A few weeks ago, Amazon paid about $70 million for an eight episode series from Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner and another $160 million for two eight episode seasons for a David O. Russell drama starring Julianne Moore and Robert de Niro.

Fans of Good Girls Revolt should not lose all hope though. Sources close to Sony TV, whose TriStar Television division produced the series, is working on getting the rights of the show back from Amazon so that they can shop it around to other networks. If it worked for The Mindy Project, Nashville, Arrested Development, and Gilmore Girls, who says it will not work for the ass kicking, patriarchy smashing women of Good Girls Revolt?

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