Sunday, May 24, 2026

ABC Wednesday Night Comedy Dilemma: Which Low Rated Family Is Done, the Conners or the Goldbergs?

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Wednesday night’s comedy block on ABC was the usual ratings disaster. All the shows performed miserably, and ABC finished in fourth place behind Fox.

Behind Fox!

The big question everyone is waiting to hear about is which of the low rated families will get the axe: The Conners or the Goldbergs?

My guess is, The Goldbergs. They fell well under  3 million viewers this week to 2.79 mil. Jeff Garlin is gone and all the pretending in the world hasn’t worked to make Murray Goldberg’s absence make sense.The show is not funny and not well acted or written. After 9 seasons, “The Goldbergs” are ready to say so long.

“The Conners” has one more season left to it. They finished last with 2.9 million, down 10.5% from the prior outing. At least they have stars like Laurie Metcalf and John Goodman. They also have a chance to wrap up the Conners’ saga once and for all with a fifth final season. The writers can give everyone a happy ending.

This seems like the way to go, but knowing network executives, they’ll do something else entirely. ABC also has to deal with their two other comedy half hours on Wednesday, the Black “Wonder Years” and Home Economics. Each one scores less than 2 million viewers although I am partial to “The Wonder Years.” I hope it continues.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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