NBC Sports Cancels "The Crossover"

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Michelle Beadle's "Crossover" Canceled
Sep 26, 2013
by Liz Raftery


Michelle Beadle's NBC Sports show "The Crossover" has been canceled.

The "Access Hollywood" host tweeted the news Wednesday, saying: "Crossover is donzo. Thanks 2 the crew who tried their damnedest. I'll let ya know what's next."



"The Crossover" has been plagued by poor ratings since it debuted in January. NBC Sports said it axed the show in order to focus more on NHL coverage.

"With the NHL returning, we decided to focus on our core sports and have created vertical programming blocks in that time period to do that," NBC Sports said in a statement. "We look forward to Michelle Beadle and the production team continuing their work on other NBC Sports Group properties."

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Michelle...d-1071290.aspx

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http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2013/...the-start.html

When the launch of The Crossover was announced back in January, there were high hopes that the show would become a signature program for NBC Sports Network. The show premiered with a lot of fanfare during Super Bowl week with Dave Briggs and Michelle Beadle as co-hosts and occupied the 6 p.m. ET hour.

From the start, it was obvious the two would not recreate the magic of the original SportsNation which Beadle co-hosted with Colin Cowherd for three years on ESPN2. Despite their best efforts, the pairing of Briggs and Beadle did not work and by May of this year, Briggs was booted to later host another show for NBCSN and Crossover became a solo vehicle for Michelle.

From then on, the show had more stops and starts than a car stuck in Los Angeles morning rush hour traffic. The constant pre-emptions, time changes, and lack of promotion turned out to be a death knell.

The show was first pre-empted by the Tour of California cycling race which allowed the program to re-tool for its second incarnation. And then in July, Crossover was lost for the entire month as NBCSN focused on the Tour de France. Crossover returned in August, moved an hour earlier to 5 p.m. ET, but then in September, the pre-emptions returned when the America's Cup began its final stages. By this time, any momentum Crossover was hoping to gain had been lost.