Craig Erwich On Future Of Freeform Original Scripted Programming

deadline.com:

Part two of Good Trouble’s fifth and final season is currently airing on Freeform, followed by Part two of grown-ish‘s sixth and final season in the spring .

When it ends, so will the presence of original scripted series on the Disney cable network. Once a destination for pop culture defining YA series such as Pretty Little Liars, Freeform over the past few years has scaled back its original scripted fare, with no current shows and no major projects in the pipeline.

There have been a lot of questions lately about the viability of original scripted programming on ad-supported basic cable, with many networks pulling away from it due to high costs that are hard to sustain amid declining linear ratings and accelerated cord-cutting.

The prospect of Freeform maintaining an original scripted slate faced further uncertainty when the network was dropped by leading cable operator Charter in September and when its head of programming and development Jamila Hunter, a seasoned scripted executive, left a couple of months later and was not replaced. (The network’s scripted operation had been already significantly downsized in the April 2023 layoffs.) The developments sparked rumors that Freeform was getting out of the original scripted series business.