No, ABC says, ‘Last Man Standing’ was not canceled because of politics

Of all the series that ABC recently canceled — including “Dr. Ken,” “The Catch,” “The Real O’Neals” and “American Crime” — there’s one that was particularly contentious.

That would be “Last Man Standing,” the sitcom starring Tim Allen as a conservative “man’s man” who hated President Barack Obama and scoffs at political correctness. After the network announced the cancellation recently (its sixth season finale aired in March), some viewers were furious that a series with decent ratings (an average of 8.1 million per week) was scrapped, and pointed to the fact that it’s a conservative-leaning show in liberal Hollywood — with a conservative-leaning star.

Earlier this year, Allen — an outspoken Republican — told Jimmy Kimmel that he attended President Trump’s inauguration, a rarity for anyone in show business. “You gotta be real careful around here,” he told the late-night host. “You get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody else believes. This is like ’30s Germany.”

In a conference call Tuesday to announce ABC’s fall schedule, entertainment president Channing Dungey said “Last Man Standing” was canceled for “business and scheduling reasons,” and a big part of her job is to “make the tough calls and cancel shows we would love to have on.”

” ( ‘ L a s t Man S t a ndi ng’ ) was a challenging one for me because it was a steady performer in the ratings,” Dungey said. “Once we made the decision to not continue with comedies on Friday, that was where we landed.” (Starting in the fall, fairy tale drama “Once Upon a Time” moves to Friday nights, taking over the timeslot from “L ast Man Standing” and “Dr. Ken.”)

“Last Man Standing” is also produced by outside studio 20th Century Fox TV, and not ABC Studios, which means there’s less potential financial reward for ABC’s parent company, Disney.

Currently, a Change.org petition to save the show has about 108,000 signatures.

Later in the call, a reporter asked Dungey if the politically charged climate figured into ABC’s decision-making process about upcoming shows and development.

“There’s a lot of news, and I think that people are definitely looking to television as a place they want to feel, they want to laugh, they want to cry … the mood of the country has told us that television is a little bit of an escape,” Dungey said. “What people want to do now is connect and experience and to feel … that did frame a lot of our development thinking this season.”

In other ABC news, Dungey confirmed that hit political drama “Scandal” will end next year after its seventh season. The network also officially announced an eight-episode reboot of “Roseanne,” the working class sitcom starring Roseanne Barr, which will air in 2018 with its original cast. And next spring will also bring “Dancing With the Stars Junior,” a spin-off of the popular competition series that will pair celebrity kids — and kids of celebrities — with professional junior ballroom dancers.