For a while, “Channel Zero” was hailed as the best horror show on television. Premition in 2016 on Syfy, the anthology series took popular internet creepypastas and shot them in a small screen with a small screen. Unfortunately, all the good things must end, this spectacle welcomed having met its end after four seasons in 2019.
“Channel Zero” was canceled by Syfy in January 2019, only a few months after the fourth season of the show, entitled “The Dream Door”, finished its race. The network has not taken a long time to make its decision. But why did they cancel the acclaimed show when the endless channel of the Creepypasta tradition could have paved the way for endless seasons? As always, it is up to the juice that is worth it. In this case, Syfy – or more importantly, the parent company of the Nbcuversal network – simply did not do enough of its investment to put pressure.
At the time, NBCUNIVERIVERSALLY hatched plans to launch its own streaming service, which we were going to know under the name of Peacock. He made his debut in July 2020 at the height of the pandemic. The pandemic was not even a concern when “Channel Zero” was canceled. What was a concern was the billions that Nbcu was going to have to invest in Peacock to compete with Netflix, Disney +, HBO Max and others on the market. Peacock has lost billions and billions of dollars during its first years of operation.
More specifically, “Channel Zero” had an agreement in place to broadcast exclusively on Shudder. It was good for horror fans because the service is aimed at gender enthusiasts very well. But that didn’t do anything to help Nbcu go out in the streaming game, because Shudder belongs to AMC Networks. The future focused on Hollywood streaming has forced companies to think in terms of exclusive content, and it was undoubtedly a consideration with this show.
The zero channel has stopped giving meaning to Syfy
By putting aside all the streaming considerations, the show was never a great success in the notes and showed signs of decline. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the first season recorded an average of 543,000 viewers during the initial broadcast. In season 4, this issue fell just 265,000 viewers. This, despite the fact that season 4 of “Channel Zero” had won very good criticism.
However, good criticisms only lead you so far. A network needs an audience to justify the continuation of a show. For his part, the creator of the Nick Antosca series took everything in the process. By taking on Instagram in 2019 after the announcement of the news, he had this to say about it. “I loved doing this show, and I would have loved doing more … But I can’t complain too much to do 4 stories that I loved with people with whom I liked working.” He continued:
“People like our writers, our actors, our extraordinary team, the artists who contributed, our publishers and our post team, our composer Jeff Russo, our team from Syfy and UCP. And especially the four impressive directors, Craig Macneill, Steven Piet, Arkasha Stevenson, and Evan Katz. Kerry Hammond and Charlotte Bywater. “”
“I am deeply grateful for this experience. Especially to all those who watched, spoken and written on the show. There are stories that we could not tell and creatures that you could not see, but could still,” added Antosca.
Antosca continued to be successful in the field of horror on television. He co-created “Brand New Cherry Flavour” for Netflix, which was created in 2021. More recently, he was an executive producer of the television series “Chucky”, which took place for three seasons on Syfy and USA Network. It is also behind the next television version of “Cape Fear”, which is in preparation at Apple TV +.
You can broadcast “Channel Zero” on Shudder.
