Michelle Beadle appeared on the Sports Media Weekly podcast last week in an interview with our Ken Fang and spoke openly about the struggle in promoting her NBCSN show The Crossover. The struggle has ended abruptly as Richard Sandomir of the New York Times reports that NBC has canceled the show.
With expansion of NFL programming and NHL season starting, NBCSN cancels low-rated "The Crossover"
— Richard Sandomir (@RichSandomir) September 25, 2013
The writing was on the wall with The Crossover changing formats and timeslots and most recently being preempted by America's Cup sailing on a routine basis – including today. Still though, in comparison to other NBCSN studio shows, The Crossover was doing comparable numbers. Via Son of the Bronx, The Crossover averaged 35.9k viewers in 7 episdoes from September 2-8. Pro Football Talk averaged 40k viewers in 4 episodes during the same timespan.
It's a discouraging sign for NBCSN that their studio shows can't get on track and attract viewers, but live sports rules all. It appears that NBCSN may try more pre and postgame NHL coverage and invest more in the NFL in place of The Crossover.
Beadle has always maintained she wants to do sports and entertainment at NBC. Perhaps the peacock will find a new role for her on that live event coverage, who knows. Whatever the case, it's back to the drawing board once again for NBCSN.
AA has reached out to Beadle for comment and we'll update the story as it progresses.