‘Suits LA’ Cancellation Explained by NBC Exec

An NBC executive is speaking out about the Suits LA cancellation.

On Friday, the network canceled five shows, including the new Suits spinoff.

The series, starring Stephen Amell, reportedly had low ratings, and NBC had to make room for the NBA, which will be airing on Tuesdays in the fall. On Saturday, NBCUniversal’s President of Program Planning Strategy, Jeff Bader, told reporters during a press conference how hard it was to make the decision, noting that Suits LA “really has not resonated [with audiences in] the way we thought it would.”

“There can be many, many reasons why it hasn’t resonated, but it’s just not showing the potential to grow for us in the future, unfortunately,” he continued via Deadline. “Those are the decisions we had to make.” Suits LA got axed alongside veterans The Irrational, Night Court, Found, and Lopez vs Lopez, and Bader shared that there were a number of factors to consider before making those tough decisions.

“We had to look at the performance of the shows, both on linear and on digital,” he said. “We had to see the ones that looked like they had growth potential in the future. We’re looking at how stable they are in their linear performance, how stable they are on digital, which ones are growing, which ones are declining. And we had to make some hard decisions.”

While the network apparently “briefly considered” bringing any of those shows to Peacock like Law & Order: Organized Crime, Bader said none were prepared to make the transition. As for the viewership, which played a big factor, Suits LA has only been drawing in 2.1 million total viewers. Despite the Suits resurgence on Netflix and bringing in multiple Suits OGs such as Gabriel Macht and Rick Hoffman, it seems like it just wasn’t enough.

Created by Aaron Korsh, Suits LA also stars Lex Scott Davis, Josh McDermitt, and Bryan Greenberg, and is set in Los Angeles, where Amell’s Ted Black runs an entertainment law firm while his friend and former partner, Stuart (McDermitt), runs a competing law firm. The series premiered in February and is the second Suits spinoff, following short-lived Pearson, which ran for 10 episodes in 2019 on USA Network and followed Gina Torres’ titular character. The Season 1 finale, which is now the series finale, airs on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.