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FX renews 'Sons of Anarchy' for fourth season

Outlaw biker drama cable's top-rated scripted show in 18-49 demo

By Alan Sepinwall Thursday, Oct 7, 2010 3:51 PM

<p>Bobby Elvis, Chibs and the rest of the "Sons of Anarchy" gang will be on FX for at least another season.</p>

Bobby Elvis, Chibs and the rest of the "Sons of Anarchy" gang will be on FX for at least another season.

Credit: FX

Unlike some other channels, both broadcast and cable, FX usually takes its time deciding whether to renew its series. "Sons of Anarchy" season 3 wasn't ordered until fairly late into season 2, even though the outlaw biker drama had already become the biggest hit in FX history.

Five episodes into season 3, though, it's so clear that "Sons" is and will continue to be a hit that FX decided not to wait in announcing their order for a season 4, to air next year.

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This year, "Sons" is the highest-rated scripted show on cable in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic. Each epsiode averages 4.9 million total viewers and 3.4 million viewers in the demo. Factoring in multiple plays across the week, those numbers go up to 8.6 million overall and 5.9 million in the demo.

“Sons of Anarchy is the most popular show FX has ever had, and the #1 series in basic cable for our key demographic.  It is also one of the best, most original series on television,” FX presdient John Landgraf said in a statement. “FX is grateful to Kurt Sutter and his team of writers, actors, directors and crew for working so hard to make a show that achieves both those levels of success.   We congratulate them and look forward to season four.”

You can read my "Sons of Anarchy" season 3 reviews here.

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Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
Related Searches: Sons of Anarchy, Alan Sepinwall

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  • Default-avatar

    Jeff W

    Great news! It's good that Sutter can expect the show to continue for a while, so he can plan larger arcs.

    October 7, 2010 at 4:09PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    JanieJones

    Congratulations to Sutter and co. It's simply compelling television.

    I fear for Terriers and on AMC, Rubicon. I really love both shows.

    October 7, 2010 at 4:19PM EST Reply to Comment



  • That's great news - Sons of Anarchy is actually one of the few shows that both my husband and I can agree on to watch.

    October 7, 2010 at 4:24PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    Medrawt

    So I knew the standards were radically different for ratings success between cable and network, but so we're clear: 4.9 million viewers is the biggest show on cable, but the premiere of Lone Star got just over 4 million viewers, which was so catastrophically bad that lots of people were surprised it even got to air a second episode.

    (Yeah, the numbers are more divergent if you only look at "the demo" - which, really, Mr. Sepinwall, isn't saying "the demo" sort of like saying "genre" to mean "sci-fi" [or, if you will, "syfy"], but still!)

    I knew the gap was big, but I'm honestly kind of shocked. (I'm not trying to make some larger point about Lone Star, which for all I know would be doing Terriers numbers on cable without the weight of a network promo campaign behind it.) The standard for what counts as fiscal success is so much lower, it really seems to reinforce the idea that it's easier to do more freely creative shows on cable.

    October 7, 2010 at 5:07PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

      sepinwall The standard is much lower, but so are the budgets. Though cable shows can sometimes become expensive in success (see "Mad Men," which draws a little over 2 million for its debut airing most weeks), for the most part they're done much cheaper than on network.

      October 7, 2010 at 5:55PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Medrawt Oh, I know the budgets are much lower as well. I just think the gap in ratings standards is really stark - the difference between the biggest drama on cable and the fastest cancellation of the network season is less than one million.

      And best as I can figure, even the biggest network hits look meager compared to what Dr. Who pulls in the UK. (This is the thing that I found dishonest - as opposed to culture-baiting, or insulting - about the Masked Scheduler's post with his epiphanic moment watching a Chiefs game. None of those people cared about Lone Star, sure, but I'm also quite confident that the vast majority of those people didn't care about House, either.)

      October 7, 2010 at 6:07PM EST
    • Default-avatar

      Extreme Measures "Middle America" (i.e. those who watch network channels) consists of moronic pests who should be exterminated from the planet for the sake of our collective future.

      October 7, 2010 at 11:24PM EST
  • Default-avatar

    LizatLax

    FX needs to make a SoA and Justified crossover happen. Somehow. The idea sits there and taunts me whenever I see the useless feds on SoA.

    October 7, 2010 at 5:16PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      MSnow Raylan Givens in Charming? Count me in.

      Glad to see FX appreciates the greatness of SoA. Now if only the Emmy voters could do the same.

      October 7, 2010 at 6:25PM EST
  • Default-avatar

    mike

    Sons of Anarchy has been letting me down ever since the end of the 2nd season when it became clear just how willing it was to abandon the promise that the end of the first season held. So far I'm fine to let it pile up on the dvr until I'm bored. Right now it can't even touch Rubicon or Terriers in "I have to watch this ass soon as possible" territory. Very disappointing. Hopefully it can pull it all back together.

    October 8, 2010 at 12:54AM EST Reply to Comment
    • Default-avatar

      Opie @ mike: what promise did it hold at the end of season 1?

      October 8, 2010 at 4:38AM EST
  • Default-avatar

    Bo

    Hopefully, somehow, Terriers will be next.

    Congrats to those involved with Sons, very good show.

    October 8, 2010 at 4:42PM EST Reply to Comment
  • Default-avatar

    rms88

    I'll keep watching.

    October 9, 2010 at 2:41AM EST Reply to Comment

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