Just The Ten of Us - Cancellation

Cancellation

ABC Network politics, not ratings issues, canceled Just the Ten of Us in the spring of 1990. The family-friendly Friday night sitcom lineup, which had been dubbed TGIF the previous fall, was witnessing growing success in the 1989-90 season with three shows from Miller-Boyett Productions: Full House, Family Matters, and Perfect Strangers. Wanting to complete the TGIF lineup with a program that visually and creatively meshed closely with the three, ABC green-lighted a new pilot from Miller/Boyett and their associates, Robert Griffard and Howard Adler, for placement at 9:30/8:30 in the fall of 1990. Thus, Warner Bros. Television and producers Guntzelman, Sullivan and Marshall were depending on ABC to move Just the Ten of Us to a night and time that would maintain the show's decent ratings.

They soon found themselves entering a battle over their show's fate. Examining their entire primetime lineup, network executives were finding it difficult to relocate the program. When ABC failed to see the series fitting anywhere else on its schedule, rumors quickly circulated that they would even drop the program altogether, if it meant milking more success with Miller/Boyett in its place. Guntzelman/Sullivan/Marshall had a solid case against such talk: Just the Ten of Us consistently won its time slot, provided an excellent lead-in to news magazine 20/20, and had a great fan base that carried over from Growing Pains viewership. When the 1990 network upfronts were announced in May, Going Places, the new Miller/Boyett sitcom with an adult "edge" that would serve as the 20/20 lead-in, appeared in the Friday 9:30 slot for September. Just the Ten of Us was nowhere on the ABC schedule, thus giving truth to the rumor. In confirming the show's cancellation, ABC stated that while the series had seen steady growth in its three seasons on the air, it still had yet to achieve commercial and large ratings success. The network felt that the series's Nielsen ranking alone at the end of season three was respectable enough for renewal, but that another show from Miller/Boyett would have been a greater audience draw than Just the Ten of Us, given the higher ratings and ad revenue yielded for M/B shows at the time. The fact that Going Places had the same visual production values as its other three TGIF siblings (since all were produced at Lorimar Television, which Ten's parent company Warner Bros. would acquire in 1993), was also emphasized by ABC at the time of the decision.

Just the Ten of Us left ABC during summer reruns in late July 1990. Although ABC saw even greater success with its TGIF lineup in the 1990-91 season, the new series, Going Places, only lasted a single season before being dropped.