One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Wait, I’m not implying that Flashpoint is trash. It’s not. It’s just that CBS tossed the gripping Canadian cop drama to the curb this past summer and now another American network has stepped in.
Cabler ION has renewed the Hugh Dillon-Enrico Colantoni starrer for a fifth season south of the border, something CTV did back in June. Still, it will be nice to have some U.S. cash flowing into the series.
Deadline outlines that ION — which leveraged repeats of Seasons 1 through 4 from CBS last January — will broadcast Season 5 episodes later this year; the Gemini winner is set to go back into production in February.
ION has been airing Season 4 episodes of Flashpoint since October, scoring a series high 2.1 million viewers for the Dec. 27 storyline.
Flashpoint bowed on CBS back in 2008 and averaged more than seven million viewers on Thursday and Friday nights in its first year. Its sophomore season saw that average jump to more than nine million viewers per week, before dropping to seven and six million for Seasons 3 and 4.
The plug was effectively pulled when CBS programming chief Nina Tassler told television critics last August she didn’t think there was room for Flashpoint in the Eye’s prime-time lineup.
ION has a history of purchasing broadcast rights of Canadian dramas, airing Dillon’s dark Movie Network/Movie Central series Durham County, CBC’s The Border and Global’s The Guard.
ION, which is available in 99 million American homes, broadcasts old episodes of Cold Case, Criminal Minds, Psych, Without a Trace, Monk and Ghost Whisperer.
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