After four seasons of airing, “Nashville" was cancelled by ABC on May 12, Thursday. Although this is a sad news for fans, there has been talks that the musical soap is being sold to other networks or digital platforms like Hulu or Netflix.
According to Deadline, a potential season five of the musical soap might probably be bought by other networks, after Lionsgate TV hired new showrunners Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick. The publication said that the new executive producers have already began writing storylines for next year.
“Nashville” season four currently airs every Wednesday night on ABC and its soft weekly ratings could be the reason for getting the axe. According to TV Series Finale, the new season premiered last September with a 1.22 rating targeting a total of 4.9 million viewers, but it continued to dip week after week. Its most recent episode plummeted to a 0.80 in rating with 3.94 million viewers, making it an easy decision for the network not to renew the series.
As “Nashville” heads for the series finale, followers of the show can still look forward to a lot more from its final two episodes including the guest starring appearances of Elton John, Whoopi Goldberg and Raven Simone among others. In the final hour slated to air on May 25, Wednesday, ABC News’ Deborah Roberts will guest star as herself. The plot will follow Rayna and Juliette as the duo attend to major storylines such as family and death.
“Nashville” joins fellow ABC series that has been cancelled for the 2016-2017 TV season. The list includes: “The Astronaut Wives Club," “Blood & Oil," “Castle," “The Family," “Galavant," “Agent Carter," “The Muppets," “Of Kings and Prophets," “Rookie Blue,“ "The Whispers,” and “Wicked City." At this point, it is far too early to tell whether the musical drama has reached its end game especially when other options are being explored by the show’s studios. For example, rom-com series “The Mindy Project” was cancelled by FOX but was revived by Hulu shortly after.
Watch the promo for next Wednesday’s episode of “Nashville” featuring Elton John below: