Well, that’s what I suspected–but clearly, it wasn’t a good enough reason to keep the show around. Curious. 
Thanks! Dang, it was fun reading that again. 
Sure hope Earl gets picked up by another network.
I think the show was becoming too expensive for them to keep around.
This also means it’s the first CSI-Universe show to end.
Thanks, and thanks also to Merijeek for the info. The ownership issue clearly must be a consideration for them.
To Hockey Monkey: I don’t like The Office, and the “Office-like” style of Parks and Recreation is surely part of what turns me off about that. I love Earl, but I don’t know if that info will help you reach a decision about renting/buying it. It’s a good-hearted show about flawed ppl USUALLY trying to be better ppl, and as Voyager said, it does have one foot firmly in absurdity.
Speaking of Voyager, good comparison with Pete and Pete, BTW.
Obviously, it’s been working for Leno for years.
The first two seasons of Earl were excellent. But the show went into the crapper about the time Earl went to jail and Randy became literally the dumbest human being alive.
Earl, The Office, and 30 Rock are pretty much the only shows I make a point of watching.
I’ll be disappointed if Earl doesn’t return on another network. Even at its worst (I wasn’t crazy about the Prison or Coma storylines either), I still thought Earl was more creative and witty than most other sitcoms. And, hey, it even has a nice uplifting message about trying to do the right thing. 
By far the biggest source of money for a TV show, particulary half hour sitcoms, is syndication, not the first broadcast on a network. But there used to be an FCC rule that limited how many shows a network could own on its schedule, so NBC, CBS and ABC rarely worried about syndication money since they couldn’t earn any on shows someone else owned, produced and sold to them (NBC doesn’t get any of the gob od money from reruns of *Seinfeld *and Friends). Fox, however, since they only program for two hours a night orginally wasn’t considered a network by the FCC’s 1990s defination and rules that appplied to the Big Three didn’t apply to Fox. This meant Fox could own and produce The Simpsons, air it on their own network and then collect the hundreds of millions of dollars from syndication and DVD sales (as you can imagine, the long running The Simpsons is the most profitbale show of all time).
That FCC rule has been weakened in recent years. And now NBC, CBS and ABC make damn sure they own a piece of as many shows they can get away with, since again, they make way more money in syndication than in the commercials from a show’s first airing. This means that NBC is going to be more interested in keeping shows it owns like The Office, Parks and *30 Rock * and Leno on the air over *Earl *and Scrubs since they are just paying competators Fox and ABC to make something that Fox and ABC will see way more money from than NBC will. Cancelling those two programs is actually a sound busness descion in that regard despite their good ratings. Or at least good ratings by NBC’s standards.
On a side note, I think it is funny that NBC produces House for Fox, which is a more popular show than anything on NBC.
I think there are many spelling mistakes above, but it is 4am in my home
When you talk about syndication and profits, though, aren’t shows like My Name is Earl more profitable than shows like Leno? My Name is Earl will get lots of sales overseas, and Leno won’t; Earl will sell lots on DVD, and Leno won’t.
Maybe those sales are less important than I thought.
But NBC doesn’t see any money from Earl’s syndication deal or DVD sales, Fox does. NBC doesn’t care how many *Earl *DVDs are sold. NBC only makes money by selling commercials when they air Earl.
And late night talk shows are very profitable even if they don’t get as good ratings as prime time because they are cheap to produce, much less than a scripted show. You just need one set with a couch and desk rather than say a mock up of a house and location shooting for a scripted show. Also, the celebrity guests go on talk shows every night and get paid dirt cheap since they are on to promote a movie or whatever. Plus, you’ll notice that NBC and CBS stick more commercials in their late night talk shows than an hour long drama. Back in the 70’s, Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show was 25% of NBC’s profits. Jay’s not Carson, of course, but late night has kept NBC going when they don’t have any Top 20 show in prime time.
This pretty much sums it up for me. Plus, some of the best, most original characters on TV. It will be missed.
Tell that to some car companies, and banks.
Actually, that is from 20th Century Fox, the producers, and not NBC, the network. 20th Century was trying to work a deal with TBS and it fell through.
It looks like Tim Stack will be out of work again. Dang.
TBS had a bid to bring back Earl, but it seems that this is not going to happen either.
Earl Lives!
It will not do, this will be regreted by NBC.
That was confirmed in the article Sigmagirl linked to, in post #31.
Tim Stack is working as a writer for *Entertainment Weekly *magazine. However, “TV’s Tim Stack” probably is on the unemployment line.
Yeah, I was just making a joke about Tim Stack as the “My Name Is Earl” character. I realize that he’ll land on his feet in real life and seldom be unemployed.
Having not watched in awhile, 1) did the finale episode act have any kind of resolution to it? and 2) what happened with Alyssa Milano? Seemed like they were advertising her as the love of his life, but I caught part of an episode and it seemed like he was trying to ditch her.