Even "Roseanne" Reruns Are Being Pulled
On Tuesday, ABC canceled Roseanne after Roseanne Barr tweeted a racist message about Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser to President Obama. And now, it looks like it’ll be extremely difficult to even find reruns of the old series on television.
The Wrap reports that reruns of Roseanne are being pulled from Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, and Laff. Hulu is also dropping episodes of the revival series from its streaming service.
“While we believe viewers have always distinguished the personal behavior of the actress Roseanne Barr from the television character Roseanne Conner, we are disgusted by Barr’s comments this week,” a Laff spokesperson said in a statement. “Therefore, we are removing the original Roseanne series from the Laff schedule for the time being, effective immediately.”
The decision is a massive one, because reruns of the old series have generated more than $1.2 billion in advertising revenue for channels that air them from 1995 to 2017. It’s not the only way Barr’s been financially hit by her comment; she has been dropped by her talent agency, ICM Partners, and ABC has suspended Roseanne's Emmy campaigning.
Some fans cheered the decision to pull reruns, saying Barr should be fully punished for her racist remark.
But other fans say the earlier seasons of Roseanne showed a different side of Barr, and are valuable pieces of television history that shouldn’t be taken off the air. Plus, pulling reruns cuts off a valuable source of income for the rest of the cast and crew that worked on the show.
Fans who do want to check out old episodes of Roseanne can do so on Amazon, which owns the streaming rights for the original series, from seasons 1 through 9.
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