fbpx
Subscribe
Menu

And Then There Were None. With The Cancellation Of BET’s ‘The Rundown With Robin Thede’ There Are No Black Women In Late-Night

And Then There Were None. With The Cancellation Of BET’s ‘The Rundown With Robin Thede’ There Are No Black Women In Late-Night

Written by Ann Brown

Jul 27, 2018

Subscribe

 

Robin Thede’s run as the only African-American female host in late-night TV has been short-lived. BET has just canceled her weekly show, “The Rundown With Robin Thede,” after it finished its initial 24-episode run in April. The show debuted in October 2016.

“The half-hour series served up a mix of headlines, sketches, field pieces and short documentary segments,” Variety reported. It also featured sketch comedy and pop culture parodies.

The show was popular from the start. “The Rundown was universally praised by critics–it boasts a rare 100 percent fresh rating among critics on RottenTomatoes.com,” The Hollywood Reporter reported.

“At this time BET Networks has decided not to renew ‘The Rundown with Robin Thede.’ We have so much love and respect for our Unicorn and look forward to finding ways to continue in partnership with Robin,” BET said in a statement.

“I’m thankful that BET took a chance on me and the show,” Thede told Variety. “I’m already in development on several other projects and I’m looking forward to hosting the TCA Awards on August 4.” Thede will host the Television Critics Association’s 34th annual TCA Awards on Aug. 4 in Beverly Hills. Thede was previously head writer and a panelist on Comedy Central’s “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.”

TCA president Daniel Fienberg (THR’s chief TV critic), told The Hollywood Reporter: “‘The Rundown’ was one of the funniest and most vital shows of 2018 and Robin Thede is one of the most important voices in contemporary comedy. The TCA Awards, in front of the industry’s best and brightest (plus hundreds of TV critics), will be a perfect opportunity to spread the message of how talented she is.”

Thede was all in her for BET show. In fact, she financed the pilot for the show in partnership with Jax Media. “Rundown,” which had a largely female production staff, was produced by Chris Rock and greenlit under Debra Lee’s watch. Lee “eventually was pushed out of the cable network in May after a more than three-decade run. She was not replaced,” The Hollywood Reporter reported. Since then the network has been making several changes.

But BET has obviously decided to go in a different direction. “The shows that have been most successful on BET are all scripted: ‘The Game,’ ‘The New Edition Story,’ ‘Being Mary Jane,’ ‘Real Husbands of Hollywood.’ When you succeed in that space, it has a wonderful effect on the brand,” Scott M. Mills, BET president, said.

According to Mills, BET wants to increase original programming by 21 percent and has given the go-ahead to nine original movies and new scripted series. And BET will be bringing back its signature awards shows–the BET Awards, Soul Train Awards, Black Girls Rock and Hip-Hop Awards.

Robin Thede
Robin Thede attends the Black Girls Rock! Awards at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2017, in Newark, N.J. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

 

 

✖