ABC announces several early show renewals

ABC announces several early show renewals

ABC disclosed the early renewals of three of its freshman comedies, “Cougar Town,” “The Middle” and “Modern Family.”

According to an article on HollywoodReporter.com, “The network made the announcement during its portion of the Television Critics Association press tour Tuesday morning. The pickups follow Monday's early renewal by Fox of its breakout freshman dramedy ‘Glee.’”

ABC took a big chance with their fall Wednesday lineup by launching a two-hour comedy block with all-new series. Fortunately, their gamble paid off since all of the shows except for the cancelled Kelsey Grammer-starring comedy “Hank” have done extremely well with viewers.

The HollywoodReporter.com article goes on to say that, “The overachiever is ‘Modern Family,’ from Steve Levitan, Christopher Lloyd and 20th TV, which has been widely praised by critics and has been the strongest performer for the network on the night. ‘Cougar Town’ and ‘Middle’ both boast A-list female leads: Courteney Cox in ‘Cougar,’ from ABC Studios and Bill Lawrence, and Patricia Heaton in ‘Middle,’ from Warner Bros. TV, Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline.’”

Meanwhile, the future of ABC’s precarious comedies “Scrubs” and “Better Off Ted” has yet to be decided.

“Scrubs” premiered in 2001 on NBC but after its seventh season the network announced that it was choosing not to renew the show but then following the seventh season’s finale, ABC announced that had bought the rights to the show and eighth season of “Scrubs” began on the network.