Low Ratings May Kill ‘Homicide’

After four years of critical acclaim and troubled ratings, next season could be the last for “Homicide: Life on the Street,” executive producer Tom Fontana says.

During a recent interview on the set of “Oz,” the drama series he and partner Barry Levinson are producing for HBO (premiering Saturday), Fontana said that “Homicide” is going to have to improve its ratings or NBC will cancel the show.

“I’m very concerned about it,” Fontana said. “I mean, I think NBC wants to renew ‘Homicide’ for another year past this year, but I’m not sure we can get the numbers up to where NBC wants them to be for renewal.”

The possibility of cancellation is real enough that Fontana said he plans to come up with another series that could be sold to NBC and filmed in Baltimore should “Homicide” go off the air in May.

“Part of what I’m going to be doing this year is trying to lay the groundwork for another series that we would shoot in Baltimore if ‘Homicide’ goes away, so that I can say, ‘OK, if you are going to cancel “Homicide,” what about this series instead?’ ” Fontana said.

NBC has consistently declined to say what ratings “Homicide” has to achieve to stay on the air. As NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield put it, “That’s not something we would want to put a number on or quantify.”

But it is no secret that NBC is not happy about “Homicide” getting beat by Don Johnson’s “Nash Bridges” on CBS this year. “Nash Bridges” finished 64th overall in the Nielsen ratings among all prime-time series, while “Homicide” finished 68th. Both came in well behind ABC’s “20/20,” which ranked 12th.

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Furthermore, hourlong dramas like “Homicide” and “Nash Bridges” can cost more than twice as much to produce as a newsmagazine like “20/20.” In terms of cost effectiveness, NBC would be better off right now cloning yet another night of its highly rated “Dateline” newsmagazine and airing it at 10 Friday nights instead of “Homicide.” Simply in terms of compatibility, most affiliates would prefer a newsmagazine over a drama series as lead-in to their late local newscasts.

In terms of cast changes, Fontana confirmed that the producers are still looking to add another woman to the cast but said he anticipates no more departures. As previously reported, Melissa Leo and Max Perlich will not be back when “Homicide” returns to Baltimore to start production July 21.

As for his involvement with “Homicide,” Fontana said it would be at about the same level as last season, when he wrote three of the series’ 22 episodes.

“The writer-producers we have in Baltimore are so good that every year they need me less and less,” Fontana said.

“There were times last year when they would, like, go, ‘Hey, Tom, why don’t you come down? We haven’t seen ya in a while.’ And I’d go down there, and they’d say, ‘What are you doing here?’

“And I’d say, ‘Well, you said you wanted me to come down.’ And they’d say, ‘Yeah, well, fine, but if you’re going to have an opinion about things, then go back to New York.’

“So, they don’t really need me that much in Baltimore. I’m still involved in coming up with all the stories. I’m still involved in the final polish of every script. I’m still involved in the editing. But with [Jim] Yoshimura and Julie Martin [supervising producers], I don’t have to worry about ‘Homicide.’ It’s on a great course,” Fontana said.