Frasier No More

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

NBC is making it official: After this year, Frasier will leave the building for the last time.

While it’s long been predicted that this would be the last year for the expensive but declining hit sitcom, NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker has informed Frasier’s producers at Paramount, including star Kelsey Grammer, that the show will complete its 11-year run at the end of this season.

The show has had something of a creative renaissance this year with the return of original showrunners Christopher Lloyd and Joe Keenan, but Frasier still is getting beat each week by ABC’s According to Jim in the key adult 18-49 demographic.

Before CBS renewed Everybody Loves Raymond last May, Grammer was the highest paid star on television, with a two-year $75 million contract that expires at the end of this season.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.