When news came that WGN was canceling Underground, fans of the show were in shock, but as the shock wore off, fans and its creator, John Legend, called out to one person to help save the show: Oprah Winfrey. But unfortunately, Winfrey says she can’t bring Underground to OWN.
During a roundtable discussion in Los Angeles about the upcoming season of Queen Sugar, Winfrey spoke about the cancellation of Underground and how she wished she could save it, but it can’t happen because the show is too expensive.
“I can’t afford Underground,” Winfrey said. “It cost twice as much to make as Queen Sugar. As a matter of fact, my dear friend John Legend called me personally and asked me about it, but we’d already been talking about how we could make it work, but it’s, like, $5 million an episode, so we can’t afford it. It’s not cheap, I think because it’s a period piece.”
Winfrey also went on to speak about the show’s low ratings, and highlighted the fact that just because it’s always trending on Twitter doesn’t necessarily correlate with higher ratings.
”We really tried to make it work,” she says. “I wanted to make it work because I think it’s a good show. I wanted to be able to save that show, but it did not make good business sense for me.”
And in the world of business, if it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense.