Pop TV president on his One Day at a Time expectations: "Critical acclaim is a big metric for us"

The Hollywood Reporter

Brad Schwartz, who has overseen the former TV Guide Network for the past six years, confirmed that Schitt's Creek's final season will be used to promote One Day at a Time. "We have the final season of Schitt's Creek, which I would imagine will be event TV with a big audience every week," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Within those episodes, we'll be able to tell people about One Day at a Time and hopefully start the latter out of Schitt's Creek's ending. We'd pass the baton from one to the other." Schwartz also plans to use reruns of the first three seasons of One Day at a Time for marketing purposes, such as marathons (but not for weekly airings). Schwartz also discussed if he will have ratings expectations for the canceled Netflix comedy. "One of the advantages that Schitt's Creek has had is that it's a network's No. 1 show," he says. "You'd always rather be a network's No. 1 show than another network's No. 8 show, even if it's a bigger platform. It gets such an outsized portion of our marketing budget and attention with the press. You really have every part of your company working overtime on what is your No. 1 show. And Schitt's Creek has enjoyed that kind of support on Pop and has grown year after year. As a smaller network that's passionate about something, you can give it time to grow. Using (Netflix content boss Cindy Holland's) analysis, you could argue that if you just looked at the numbers, Schitt's Creek should have been canceled after two years. But we love the show and we are so passionate about it. It was our No. 1 show and it put us on the map and broke through and now it's in the Emmy conversation. For us, we have different metrics of what success is. Critical acclaim is a big metric for us and having a passionate fanbase is important for us. My expectation for the show is I hope it rates similarly to Schitt's Creek, which means it's not a 2 million viewer show. But it's a show that's moving the needle, defining the network and making us proud to come to work every day and work on it. I think you'll see more effort put behind One Day at a Time on Pop than it was on Netflix, even though we're a smaller business."

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