Yahoo News Who can save Designated Survivor?
Alongside Lucifer, ABC's axing of Designated Survivor was one of the cancellations in May's TV purge that made the most noise, especially when Kiefer Sutherland had appeared pretty confident of a season three.
"Do I believe we're going to do a third season? Yes. Is that a guarantee? Not until, I think, May 15. So we'll see, we'll see," he told Digital Spy in April, before ABC risked the wrath of Jack Bauer by dropping the axe on the political drama.
To make matters worse, season two went on to finish on a cliffhanger as President Tom Kirkman (Sutherland) announced his bid for re-election, while it looked like – in classic 24 fashion – there was a mole on Kirkman's staff as we saw a video of his outgoing chief of staff Emily Rhodes (Italia Ricci) having a secret meeting with a dodgy Russian intelligence agent.
Fans are desperate for more, and with Brooklyn Nine-Nine being picked up by another network and The Expanse also looking to be saved after its cancellation, there is hope that something similar could happen with Designated Survivor.
According to Deadline, producer and distributor eOne is trying to find another home for the show. "[We are] in active discussions with other parties for further series of the show," it said in a statement.
But will it get picked up? We examine the likely candidates.
1. Netflix
After reports broke about eOne shopping the show around, Netflix emerged as a possible home for season three.
The streaming giant holds the rights to Designated Survivor internationally (outside of the US and Canada), so while viewing figures aren't widely reported for shows on Netflix and other streaming services, they will know how well the show does audience-wise. Hopefully it does well with their audiences, making it more likely that they'd invest in it.
Another factor making Netflix saving the show a possibility can be found in ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey's explanation for why the network cancelled the show.
"It did well in delayed viewing but its Live+Same Day delivery in the 10pm hour had become challenging," she said. Netflix won't be as concerned with the ratings, especially as the show has already been seen to perform in delayed (AKA catch-up) viewing, so its performance there would be seen as an advantage.
Like with Brooklyn Nine-Nine though, it's not as simple as Netflix picking up the show as there is one sticking point...
2. Hulu
And that is that Hulu owns the SVOD (Streaming / Subscription Video On-Demand) rights in the US, following the show's airing on ABC, making negotiations for Netflix picking up the show more complex.
That's not to say Netflix won't be able to come to a deal, but it also opens the possibility that Hulu could continue the show as well, like the network revived The Mindy Project, and they might be tempted by its strong international sales.
Again though, negotiations would be tricky as Netflix might not want to let go of rights to a show that has been successful for them.
3. Amazon
The third streaming service option would be Amazon, but unless both Netflix and Hulu decide not to pick up the show, talks for Amazon would be even trickier as they haven't held the rights to the show in any territory before.
So they'd be a long outside shot, even if you can't rule them out entirely as they did revive BBC's period crime romp Ripper Street back in 2014.
4. Fox
We're being a bit romantic here, but of all the US networks that could revive Designated Survivor, perhaps we could see a return to Fox for Kiefer Sutherland.
The sticking point here is that Fox will likely have the same reservations as ABC about the show which wasn't just about ratings. "Creatively, the show had a lot of behind-the-scenes churn in terms of the number of showrunners. We were less confident about the creative path forward than the other shows we brought back," Dungey outlined.
Were the show to get a third season, it was expected to get its fifth showrunner in Neal Baer and production was set to move to Los Angeles, following two seasons in Toronto, which would have raised the cost of the show that was already reportedly high for broadcast dramas, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
So unless Fox has a hankering for political dramas, we doubt they'll be the ones to continue the show.
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