Big Update on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’s Future at ABC

The doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital will continue to scrub in, so long as there are viewers eager to watch. Amid uncertainty regarding Grey’s Anatomy’s future at ABC as the series nears the end of its 21st season, Shonda Rhimes‘ producing partner Betsy Beers teased whether a Season 22 renewal is in the future.

“People always ask, ‘Do you think about this in terms of how long something will run?’” Beers acknowledged in a new interview with Deadline. “All we love to do is work on things that we love or are interested in, and that we would watch. That was sort of the key. I still think [Grey’s Anatomy is] a really fun show to watch.”

Now 21 seasons into the hit medical drama, Beers added, “The great thing is, it’s a situation where you can bring people in and people leave, and people come back, and new people come in, and there’s always an engine for new personalities, new conflicts. The great thing and the sad thing about medicine is it’s always changing, and there are always new cases. As a setting, it’s great.”

Beers said that “as long as people want to watch it, we’re excited about making it.”

Although Beers’ comments don’t mark an official confirmation of a Season 22 renewal – ABC hasn’t yet commented on the show’s fate past Season 21 – her remarks can provide some comfort to fans, who have aired concerns about the medical drama. Worry was first sparked in 2023 when Ellen Pompeo, who starred on the show as Dr. Meredith Grey since its 2005 debut, exited Grey’s as a series regular. More recently, viewers expressed concern when the show moved from its usual 9 p.m. time slot to 10 p.m., though Disney TV Group President Craig Erwich later told Deadline that the move did “not at all” signal the end for the series. Rather, he said the new time slow was “a great opportunity for ABC to launch a new show, as well as to keep Grey’s on a night where it’s been extraordinarily successful for many years.”

At the time, Erwich noted that Grey’s had a “very loyal audience,” and said the show “is creatively firing on all cylinders and continues to be extraordinarily popular — if not the most popular show in terms of past seasons. We see new generations coming into the show on a monthly basis, so the show’s in great shape.”

Centering around the interns, residents and attending physicians at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital, later Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Grey’s Anatomy premiered on ABC in 2005. The series is now the longest-running primetime medical drama in TV history, and has spawned numerous many spinoffs, including Private Practice, which ran from 2007 to 2013, and Station 19.

The series is set to return for the second half of Season 21 on Thursday, March 6.