Each week some two million people watch HBO’s Inside the NFL, which after 31 years is cable’s longest-running program.
And most of those viewers were shocked to hear the season’s final show introduced like this: Boy, that was an exciting Super Bowl and by the way we’ve been cancelled. Thanks for the memories.
This has to be the coldest break-up with a devoted audience ever.
HBO made a point to drop a bomb on viewers, even telling the show’s original host Len Dawson — flown in to tape a goodbye segment — to not go public. “They… asked me to keep the whole thing quiet because not many people knew it was coming to an end,” Dawson told the Kansas City Star. “I was shocked at first.”
The abrupt ending was made even more insulting by the way HBO explained itself. Network execs referred to Inside the NFL as just another “highlights show” among a plethora of competitors. This is ridiculous. NFL Films is unparalleled in making each game a cinematic event. Add to that the expert commentary, the casual format of hosts talking with each other, meaningful interviews and human-interest stories. There’s no show like it.
Sure, not everything on Inside the NFL hit the mark — I took out the trash during the piece on the parole officer cheerleader — but it was without exception the best hour of TV for football fans, both casual and dedicated. That made it unique. And I’ll bet it was why a lot of people paid for HBO in the first place.
Inside the NFL will almost certainly turn up next year somewhere else, but it won’t be the same as the show was one-half the work of HBO Sports. There are rumors that HBO was pressured to drop the show by the NFL so it can add it to its own struggling cable network. Or maybe NFL Films got a better offer to partner somewhere else.
Either way, it was a sad, sudden end to a great show and another black eye for HBO.
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