HBO has officially given the go ahead today for the second season of Aaron Sorkin’s rookie drama The Newsroom. The show is not exactly one of the premium network’s top shows, but it did debut to over 2 million viewers in week one which is partially why this information is coming down today in the form of a joint acknowledgement with the season six pickup of True Blood. This type of bundling often is meant to piggy back news onto more in-demand reports in order to help gain some free publicity for the up-and-comer.
Early renewals of new dramas are a staple of HBO, so nobody is too surprised by this move. The heads of the network learned their lesson several years ago with the first year run of True Blood. Even though the series’ debut was widely panned and seldom watched, the drama’s second season exploded in popularity which makes the case for giving all the channel’s programming at least two years to find an audience. Even the Dustin Hoffman-lead horse racing drama Luck was the recipient of such a courtesy; however, the renewal turned to cancellation upon the third animal death on the set of that particular program.
That said, season two will be very important. While this is unconfirmed, it is widely assumed season two of The Newsroom will debut next summer to once again take advantage of its True Blood lead-in.