Barons Pulled From The CW Primetime Schedule After Four Episodes
This news will be a major bummer to fans of the Australian surfing drama Barons: The CW has pulled it from the primetime schedule after four episodes, TVLine has confirmed. Repeats of Nancy Drew will take over the Mondays at 9/8c time slot, effective next week.
The import starred Sean Keenan and Ben O’Toole as best friends and surfers who each create their own surf brand that will go on to become iconic rivals. (The story mirrors the real-life rivalry between Billabong and Quiksilver.) “When their businesses go mainstream, the young rebels and their friends find themselves pulled deep into a world of corporate politics, jealousy, homophobia and racial tension. In selling their dream to the world, they create bitter, lasting rivalries,” per the official description.
After airing last year in Australia, Barons began airing on The CW on May 29, debuting to 179,000 total viewers and a 0.0 demo rating. Since then, its audience has fallen as low as 124K, and most recently hit 157K. (The CW’s original plan was to run the full eight-episode season; all eight episodes will still be available to stream on the CW app and cwtv.com.) Its Monday lead-in, the similarly acquired The Rising, debuted to 421K and has seen its audience dip each week, most recently to 287K.
Will you miss hanging ten with Barons? Hit the comments to share your reaction to the news.
CW going to be doing a lot of that this fall 😭
I have never even heard of the show. I’m not sure if they didn’t advertise well or if they just didn’t advertise it during the two shows I watch on the CW.
To be fair I’m Australian, work in the local film industry and have never heard of this show. It certainly didn’t grab a lot of buzz here which is probably why it ended up on the cw.
Yeah I too am Australian and have never heard of this. Went looking for it, and its on iview for any Aussies wondering.
You Aussies probably never heard of this show because it sucks.
Not sure what the CW is looking for when it comes to ratings? And what is the audience they want? It’s kinda of throwing pasta at the wall right now, just to see what works. Plus, they still have affiliate issues they need to sort out before September. But those are BAD numbers.
Not surprised by this at all. I tuned out just 10 minutes into the first episode and never tuned back in. It was boring and I couldn’t understand a word anyone said without subtitles (which I hate turning on). I imagine a lot of people out there felt the same.
It as the type of show I DVR’d and tried to watch while doing chores, a background show I didn’t have to pay attention to. Only, it didn’t work well for that, yet didn’t seem captivating enough for me to want to stop what I was doing and actually devote full on time to it either. Definitely a bit on the boring side.
Also, someone better tell CW to pull their ads for this show, they’re still airing haha
But it was cheap huh? Watch those CW numbers fall further this fall.
When the show premiered with a 0.0, I figured it was in trouble. Old CW still would’ve let it run its full season, but the new CW is okay with pulling things early. That said, I won’t be surprised if this is the first of many, considering there are very, very few shows they announced coming in the Fall that sound interesting lol
I won’t be surprised either. The new CW seems a little too confident in their plans for this fall. What they don’t seem to realize is that without a ton of promotion (or shows that people actually want to watch), they’ll essentially be digging their own graves.
Also too many shows that I watched already because I didn’t know they’d get imported.
Do they really think encore episodes will do better?
Shows like this are good for streaming services but putting them on prime-time network is such an odd idea. Especially if you’re going to pull them for doing badly in June, like what do you expect? This Fall will be – interesting.
Old CW would still pull it, especially if it’s summer. Not too long ago, the network canceled a UK show that underperformed in its timeslot.
I couldn’t get past the 1st episode.
They shouldn’t have canceled fan favorite Walker:Independence.
So much for the network trying to be more “profitable”. This was their plan going for inexpensive programming and yet you take a show off the air that was meant to be part of your new brand. This feels like karma after canceling so many beloved shows that many tuned into watch. I’m guessing the average viewers of 58 year olds that made up the demographic aren’t exactly showing up to watch this after all…
This is what happens when you try to run a network on the cheap. Re-runs and cheap foreign TV shows from Canada and Australia is to be expected in the coming years. No good BBC shows…They cost too much. Why buy a network to only run it into the ground? The golf and racing will fail too. That network was all about teens and someone is going to pick up the slack and make all that advertising money. Big mistake.
I tried. Two episodes and I lost interest 🙃 It was not a show that sparked continuation
Who?
Schwartz and Miller don’t seem to care about quality. “What is the cheapest thing we can buy to get a pulse?” The CW as we knew it is dead, and the new CW is soulless.
All I’m hoping is that the Nancy Drew reruns, as well as the (so far) stable numbers season 4 has had, makes either the CW or another network/streaming service look at picking it up for a season 5. I mean the CW is going to go down in flames of its own making, but I really don’t understand what they’re even doing. Canceling popular shows while picking up international shows with no promo? It’s like they want to fail miserably.
Sadly for Nancy Drew fans, Leah Lewis has already signed on to a picked up project and Kennedy McMann’s Good Doctor spinoff “The Good Lawyer” is also still in contention for ABC, so right there two of the main cast would not be available to do more even if The CW or anyone else wanted it.
I know it would be difficult and the odds are low, but it is possible for the cast to film two shows at once, especially Leah since she’s on a CBS show. If they keep Nancy Drew to 13 episodes, or maybe even reduce it to 10, it could be done. Listen I know the odds are low but I’ve had too many of my favorite shows canceled, I have to have some hope even if it’s unlikely.
You know, that’s an interesting thought. Would they get some kind of tax write-off they did fail miserably? That’s a pretty big motivator these days….
ND is dead. Let it go! It was cancelled last year.
I don’t think I need to let it go when there have been many, many shows canceled and brought back. And with the writer’s strike going on at the moment, there’s a current dearth of new shows being pitched, so networks may be looking at bringing back previously canceled shows to fill some gaps once the new deal is struck. Nancy Drew has built-in, dedicated fanbase, a writing team that has worked together for 4 seasons, and a cast that all get along. If there’s even a minuscule chance of the show getting picked up, I’m going to take it.
I recorded some episodes but found them dull and unwatchable. Even the filming seemed to have been done with cheap equipment.
Good eye. It was actually filmed on a didgeridoo.
Ha… I’ve seen some really good Australian shows. This just wasn’t one of them.
I saw some of Barons and I never got into it. Every time a good show comes on, the networks, as in the CW, cancel it right away.
I’m surprised no network or streaming service in the US has picked up Colin From Accounts yet if they want an Australian show. Definitely one of the best comedies of the year and it seems to have performed well in every country it has aired.
They failed for a lot less than they were failing for before.
What? American broadcast networks still pull shows due to low ratings? How very 20th century of them. I thought they’ve already given up and ALL scripted shows are just filler in between sports, reality & etc. Does it really matter if something gets 0.00 or 0.02 rating, lol?
Scripted shows aren’t filler FBI’s, One Chi, sitcoms tons of scripted shows on Broadcast, sports are only aired during the weekends in primetime or championships like NBA Finals etc.
Wow! How bad do you have to be to get pulled by The CW?
Not in the least. Not sure why anyone in the US, other Australians who live in the US, would even care about such a plot. Just to show I’m not anti-Aussie, I wouldn’t understand why anyone in Australia would care about watching a program on a US based minor sport.
I too could not make it through the first episode of Barons. The other show that debuted before it, The Rising, is British and has been a keeper. It is well worth a watch.
Yeah, I think think the CW is going to be seeing similar numbers to that this fall even with diminished competition due to the writers strike. The fact it’s being replaced by a show that was already cancelled before it started airing its current season speaks volumes… Like wouldn’t repeats of All-American/Walker/Superman&Lois/Homecoming do better?
Probably those are more expensive to reair.
Looks like the remaining episodes will be posted one episode per week at a time. Come on CW, post them all!
I think that The CW should’ve aired the last 4 EPs in my opinion was cheap sowhat that it had low ratings. Barrons was an alright show I watched 3 out of 4 EPs live watched one OnDemand, If it was in season I wouldn’t have watched it.
Very disappointed was really enjoying the monday nite double header w the rising and barons…please bring back the barons