After three seasons, Netflix made the decision to cancel the critically praised comedy One Day At A Time. Luckily for fans, the show will get second life on Pop, a CBS-owned cable network who has picked up One Day At A Time for a fourth season. 13 new episodes will premiere in 2020 on Pop. Following this run, CBS has promised to also broadcast the series later on in the year. This will bring One Day At A Time back to its roots, as the original show first debuted on CBS over 40 years ago. CBS’s streaming platform, CBS All Access, made an initial attempt to revive the comedy before Pop made a deal to host the fourth season. The deal is historic in nature. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is the first example of a scripted original show making a transition from a streaming platform, Netflix, to a cable network, Pop.
This move will grant Sony both syndication and international rights to One Day At A Time. These were previously controlled by Netflix. Although Pop will air the first three seasons of the comedy in addition to the new fourth season, the first three seasons will remain on Netflix for streaming as well.
Pop TV president Brad Schwartz made the following statement on Thursday: “How amazing it is to be involved with this brilliant and culturally significant series that deals with important themes one minute while making you laugh the next.If Schitt’s Creek has taught us anything, it’s that love and kindness always wins. Pop is now the home to two of the most critically praised and fan-adored comedies in all of television, bringing even more premium content to basic cable. We couldn’t be more proud to continue telling heartwarming stories of love, inclusion, acceptance and diversity that pull on your emotions while putting a smile on your face.”
Under the original deal between Sony Pictures Television and Netflix, no other streamer would have been able to revive the show following its cancellation three months ago. This made it impossible for platforms like Amazon or CBS All Access from picking up One Day At a Time. Moving forward, Netflix’s exclusive streaming rights to the first three seasons will stand.
One of the show’s executive producers, Norman Lear, is grateful to the cable network’s decision to host another season of the well-loved comedy. “Three months ago, I was heartbroken with the news of our beloved One Day at a Time’s cancellation. Today, I’m overwhelmed with joy to know the Alvarez family will live on,” Lear said. “Thank you to my producing partner, Brent Miller, our incredibly talented co-showrunners, Mike Royce and Gloria Calderón Kellett, and of course, Sony, for never once giving up on the show, our actors or the possibility that a cable network could finally save a cancelled series that originated on a streaming service. And one last thank you to, Pop, for having the guts to be that first cable network. Even this I get to experience — at 96.”
Earlier this year, Netflix made the decision to cancel One Day At A Time due to economic concerns. Apparently, although the show was praised universally by critics, it did not attract broad viewership. In March Netflix’s Head of Originals, Cindy Holland, told The Hollywood Reporter that it “didn’t make economic sense” for Netflix to renew One Day At A Time for fourth season. “We supported three seasons of a show that probably wouldn’t have made it past season one any other place — if it had been made at all,” Holland explained. “But at some point, we do need to look for other stories to tell that can garner bigger audiences.”
Holland continued with, “We supported three seasons of it, but at some point, you have to make the difficult decision to say goodbye and try to look for other stories to tell and invest in that hopefully will garner larger audiences. One Day at a Time had a core, passionate but pretty small audience that didn’t materially grow season over season. Frankly, we were looking for reasons to try to continue to say yes, and we just got to the point where it was hard to find them — other than knowing we loved the show and that it had a small core audience.”
Pop was initially owned by both CBS Corp. and Lionsgate, and is known well for its Canadian comedy, Schitt’s Creek. The 2017 rebut of One Day At A Time was inspired by Lear’s 1975 original by the same name, and stars Justina Machado (Penelope Alvarez), Todd Grinnell (Schneider), Isabella Gomez (Elena Alvarez), Marcel Ruiz (Alex Alvarez), Stephen Tobolowsky (Dr. Leslie Berkowitz), and Rita Moreno (Lydia Riera).