"Suits," a beloved series that debuted on USA in 2011, has enjoyed a remarkable run and a significant revival on Netflix in recent years, fueling countless binge-watching marathons. Despite this enduring popularity, the new spin-off, "Suits LA," couldn't maintain the momentum and was abruptly canceled after just one season, as revealed with NBC's fall schedule announcement. Jeff Bader, the president of program planning strategy at NBC, shared insights into the decision to pull the plug on the series.
“It’s so hard to talk about shows and which ones you bring back, and Suits had a very short run, but it really just has not resonated the way we thought it would,” Bader explained to Variety after the fall schedule was released. “There can be many, many reasons why, people are speculating why it hasn’t resonated, but it’s just not really showing the potential to grow for us in the future, unfortunately.”
Bader elaborated on the tough choices that had to be made, saying, “And it’s those decisions we had to make. We had to look at the performance of the shows, both on linear and on digital. We had to see the ones that looked like they had growth potential in the future. So we’re looking at how stable they are on their linear performance, how stable they are on digital, which ones are growing and which ones are declining. And we had to make some hard decisions.”
He also mentioned the potential for transferring canceled shows to Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, but "Suits LA" did not receive approval for such a move. As for the shows that survived the cut, Bader explained the criteria used to keep them on the schedule, particularly in light of needing to accommodate sports programming with the NBA taking over Tuesday nights.
“We looked at what their performance was week-to-week, episode-to-episode, on both linear and digital, to just try and glean which ones we thought had the best ratings story,” Bader told the outlet. “And then on the creative side, the creative teams did the same thing. Which ones have the most potential, or the best potential, to capture a new audience? And these were the two shows that made their way to the top.”
"Suits" originally ran for nine seasons from 2011 to 2019. The revival series, "Suits LA," premiered in February and starred Stephen Amell, Lex Scott Davis, Josh McDermitt, and Bryan Greenberg. It also featured appearances by original "Suits" cast members such as Rick Hoffman, David Costabile, and leading man Gabriel Macht. Aaron Korsh, the creator of "Suits," also served as the creator and executive producer of the spin-off, which aired its final episode on May 11, 2025.
