ABC has decided to renew ‘Nashville’ after a long and hard battle over budget and tax incentives.
ABC has renewed country music drama Nashville, for a 22 episode third season.
The Nashville series is a huge series with big actors including Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere. The show has developed a following and a growing audience. But, everything wasn’t all cowboys and banjos. Recently, ABC was going to pull the plug on the show but decided to decrease the budget. This left the producers and studios to fill a large gap in production costs. In order to help fill that gap, producers discussed with Tennessessee’s film and television commission about a larger tax incentive.
Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development had previously said of the show, “You’re not only getting the 20-plus episodes per season, every advertisement and preview for the TV show is essentially advertising Nashville.” Tennessee committed $12.5 million to Nashville for the 2013-14 fiscal year in a package created outside the normal incentive program — a cost weighed against the estimated $40 million in economic impact the show was generating for the state. Needless to say, Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development filled the shows of the budgetary gap for the television series.