While it may not be making news with its ratings, CW has the dubious honor of being the first network to officially cancel a show this fall. According to Zap2It, Online Nation, a show basically made up of YouTube clips, has been axed. The cancellation comes only a week after announcing that they were making teen soap Gossip Girl fall’s first official pickup.
You may remember Fox yanking Nashville Star early in the season after only two episodes, but since they didn’t officially rule out a return to the airwaves, Online Nation is fall’s first official casualty. Even though CW executives must be scratching their heads over the failure of their “the kids, they love the internets!” programming plan, I’m wondering how they didn’t notice the collective disinterest that viewers showed in Web Junk 2.0, VH1’s 2006 similarly-themed show.
CW must have thought Nation was a safe bet; a web clip show hosted by two “internet personalties” must have cost about a buck-fifty to make and roughly 15 minutes to shoot. Unfortunately, even a bargain-basement price couldn’t keep a show with CW's worst ratings ever on the air. The fourth episode only managed to attract 500,000 viewers. Nation’s 7:30 pm Sunday slot will be filled with repeats of their freshman sitcom, Aliens in America.
