As we reported a few weeks back, ‘Roseanne’ would still have ‘fans’ if another network picked it up after ABC canceled it over Barr’s social media controversy. More than a third of Americans disagreed with the network’s decision.
Since the announcement, no other network has touched the sitcom, however, ABC announced late last week it would run a spinoff show called ‘The Conners’. Many would call this a risk for the network, as this doesn’t do much to distance it from the said former controversy.
Nevertheless, we looked into intent to watch this show.
80% of the general population has no apparent interest in watching the show. However, 13% are somewhat likely to watch, 7% very. If they follow through, that’s still a good chunk of the population.
We’ll profile those who report they are at all likely to watch it for this quick post.
Age-wise, a big portion is Gen X (and even Millennials).:
Women appear to be more interested in the spinoff than men:
Lastly, since we highlighted political ideology in our last post on ‘Roseanne’s’ cancellation, we cross-tabbed it with the ‘Conners’ question:
Initially, it’s somewhat surprising that Democrats and Independents are more likely to want to watch this show. It’s counterintuitive to what I initially thought, but being that its star, who has opposite views, is out of the equation, this becomes clearer and may have been what ABC wanted—a backfilling of fans, so to speak.
When we look at the question again, adding the non-interested watchers of ‘The Conners’ back in below, we see these folks identify as Republican more than those who want to watch the spinoff.
Perhaps this one doesn’t have everything to do with politics, and more with lack of interest for watching a spinoff show after its star is no more? It’s like a lake without water on the hottest summer day. I also suspect viewers who did not agree with ABC’s decision to fire Roseanne Barr could still be sour.
We’ll see how this pans out for ABC as time goes on. But for at least right now, interest is lacking from the same audience who initially disagreed with ABC’s decision to cancel ‘Roseanne’ and fire its star. If it was ABC’s intention to recapture the attention of this audience, and just transfer their interest to this spinoff, it may have backfired. We’ll see if ‘The Conners’ holds water without its old star.