Monarch was cancelled after the show’s first season, because the show’s viewership started to decline and Fox just was not getting the response that they expected.
The musical elements and often the plots are what draw so many people to the country music television drama genre.
However, in the case of Monarch, its initial success proved to be inadequate and Fox cancelled the show after just one season, when audiences did not respond to the show as expected.
Why are country music dramas so popular?
Monarch is hardly the first show to try and blend the world of country music with that of a hit television series. Other shows like Nashville, Malibu Country have been very popular in the past.
There are many different reasons why audiences enjoy watching shows in the country drama genre, such as the beloved or original country music songs and the inside look at how the country music industry operates.
Why did Monarch get cancelled?
Although country music dramas always tend to draw in large audiences, high viewership numbers, and high ratings are not always enough to keep a popular show from being cancelled by its studio.
This is sadly also the case for Fox’s new show, Monarch, which originally premiered on the network on 11 September 2022.
Monarch was created by director, Melissa London Hilfers, as Fox’s first wholly-owned scripted series.
This show follows the everyday lives of and the conflict that erupts between as the show phrases it – “America’s first family of country music”, the Romans.
The cast of the show is star-studded, featuring Oscar-winning actress, Susan Sarandon in the role of the matriarch of the Roman family, Dottie Cantrell Roman, as well as Anna Friel, who plays Nicolette Roman and award-winning country music singer, Trace Adkins in the role of Albie Roman.
However, even though the show managed to attract large audiences initially, this fanfare died down as the first season progressed and shortly after the final episode of this season aired on 6 December 2022.
Fox announced that the show had been cancelled and that the show would end after just one season.
Although there are likely many reasons why Fox decided to cancel Monarch in the end, it is probable that the bumpy start to the show, and the increased competition in the world of television simply meant that the show was not resonating with audiences in the way that the studio had hoped it would and it was just not raking in enough money.
How was Monarch performing before it got cancelled?
Monarch started off really well with the release of its first episode, closely following an NFL telecast on 11 September 2022.
This premiere became Fox’s most-watched fall scripted debut in three years after it brought in 3.8 million viewers live and same-day viewers, with a 0.8 score for the adult audience between 18 and 49 years old.
However, when the subsequent episodes aired in the regular Sunday timeslot, these initial high viewership numbers gradually declined over time, and it averaged 4.1 million multiplatform viewers for this first season.
What did fans love about Monarch?
Fans of Monarch that did watch the show for the entire first season really loved the fact that it delivers on all of the highly-dramatic moments that you expect from a primetime soap opera.
Many also felt that the twists and turns in the plot were reminiscent of another enthralling and successful Fox music drama called Empire.
Some fans who did not enjoy the melodramatic nature of the plot decided to keep watching the show to enjoy some of the varied music moments, featuring songs like Lizzo’s “Juice,” Faith Hill’s “Breathe,” Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph,” and “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles’.
Was Monarch doomed to fail from the start?
There are many factors that contribute to a show’s success, or lack thereof. Monarch had a difficult start.
The show was originally meant to premiere in January of 2022 but had to be pushed back because of the complications caused by filming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the show did eventually premiere, it was much shorter than originally planned, with only 11 episodes.
However, even though this may seem like Fox pushed the show to the side, the opposite was actually true – the show was being positioned as the studio’s big hit for the fall season.
Unfortunately, though, the show was just not as big of a success as the studio had hoped, and this led the studio to cancel it.
Fox also cancelled many other shows recently, including The Big Leap, Duncanville, Our Kind of People and more, likely because these shows were just not making enough money, similarly to Monarch.