Why The Beverly Hillbillies Was Canceled After Season 9
The charming antics of the Clampett clan had kept audiences laughing for nine seasons, but in 1971, The Beverly Hillbillies was suddenly canceled.
The Beverly Hillbillies was one of the most popular sitcoms on the air during its nine-season run, but the show was unceremoniously canceled in 1971. Debuting for CBS in 1962, The Beverly Hillbillies followed the simple Clampett family as they came into a fortune and moved to the lavish neighborhood of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. Its popularity inspired a slew of rural-themed programming that helped elevate the network CBS straight to the top of the ratings for most of the 1960s. Its humorous cast of characters and open-ended premise ensured the show could have gone on much longer, but its ninth season was its last.
Despite capturing the hearts of viewers for almost a decade, the Clampetts were taken off the air without a series finale, and it wasn’t until a 1981 television movie that fans got any sort of closure. Though some jokes on The Beverly Hillbillies aged poorly, the heartwarming and accepting themes of the series were among its strongest aspects, and it attracted a wide audience from all walks of life. Nevertheless, the year 1971 was a major turning point for CBS, and The Beverly Hillbillies was one of multiple popular series on the network to find itself canceled despite almost universal popularity.
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The Beverly Hillbillies Was Canceled As Part Of The Rural Purge
Though television production could be an art form just like filmmaking, it was always a money-making enterprise, and CBS began to have concerns with their advertisers by 1971. Having gone all in on rural-themed programming in the early ’60s, the network had produced some of the best sitcoms ever, but gained a reputation as the “Country Broadcasting System.” Because of that perceived lack of diversity within their audience, advertisers believed they weren’t able to advertise their expensive products. As reported by the Saturday Evening Post, CBS then instituted what was later called the Rural Purge, which saw all of its rural-themed programming axed in favor of newer, more urban-centric productions.
Along with The Beverly Hillbillies, shows like Green Acres and Petticoat Junction were also quickly booted off the network, and the entire slate of programming was changed for the coming calendar year. The Rural Purge was not based on ratings but was made to improve the network’s image and diversify its appeal beyond only older, working-class people. The best episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies were watched by millions across the country, but the urban and middle-class markets had more buying power when it came to purchasing advertisers’ products, and thus the network decided to tailor towards them.
While the 1960s TV slate was dominated by less confrontational shows like Green Acres and Hee Haw, the Rural Purge opened the door for a different tone in the ’70s. One of the shows greenlit by CBS to fill in the gaps after the purge was All in the Family, which depicted suburban life and many of the important issues vexing the United States during that decade. Similarly, culture-defining Black sitcoms like The Jeffersons made CBS one of the most diverse and progressive networks. Even if the decision was made for monetary reasons initially, The Beverly Hillbillies’ cancelation was the birth of a new era of TV history.
