ABC Responds To ‘Last Man Standing’ Petition

ABC has responded to the petition to boycott ABC for canceling their conservative sitcom Last Man Standing.

ABC RESPONDS TO LAST MAN STANDING PETITION

ABC is attempting to shut down the rumors that the show was canceled because of any political beliefs or affiliations of the main actor on the series, Tim Allen. They maintain that the decision was due to “business and scheduling reasons.” ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey, in her report, added that it was an unfortunate part of her job to “make the tough calls and cancel shows we would love to have on.”

Since the cancelation, more than 289,000 fans have signed an online petition in the hopes of saving the show, while speculating that the cause was Allen’s Republican-leaning views.

“[Last Man Standing] was a challenging one for me because it was a steady performer in the ratings,” Dungey explained. “Once we made the decision to not continue with comedies on Friday, that was where we landed.”

“There’s a lot of news,” she continued, “and I think that people are definitely looking to television as a place they want to feel, they want to laugh, they want to cry… the mood of the country has told us that television is a little bit of an escape,” Dungey said. “What people want to do now is connect and experience and to feel… that did frame a lot of our development thinking this season.”

Another potential reason for the cancelation was the fact that the show is not produced by ABC Studios but rather by Century Fox TV. Dungey, however, “wouldn’t say that was the sole factor in not bringing Last Man Standing back.”