It’s been a rough year for established directors debuting high-profile cable series about the music industry, as, mere months after HBO threw Vinyl onto the cancellation bonfire like so many disco records, Showtime has told Cameron Crowe’s Roadies to pack it up. Crowe lamented the show’s cancellation in a post on his blog, where he said:
Though we could tell a thousand more stories, this run ends with a complete ten-hour tale of music and love. Like a song that slips under your skin, or a lyric that keeps speaking to you, we hope the spell of Roadies lingers. It was life-changing experience for all of us.
The number of people whose lives were changed by Crowe’s TV series will remain limited, though, as the show reportedly saw little to no growth episode over episode—unlike HBO’s The Night Of, whose ratings rose steadily along with critical buzz as its season progressed. Roadies, meanwhile, remained stagnant on both counts.
Between this, Vinyl, and the cancellation of Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll earlier this week, looks like rock ’n’ roll really is dead—on TV, anyway.