Template:QOTW - Ten Years to Life/Production
In 2012, Queen of the Willis was canceled after six seasons due to low ratings. NoSirGifts tried to sell rights for reruns of the show, but it was hard to find boradcasters that were interested; NoSirGifts-owned independent stations eventually bought the rights, "[...] basically for free", according to the president of NoSirGifts Television Production.[1] When the reruns were shown on NoSirGifts' independent stations in 2014, Queen of the Willis became the most-watched program in Fort Wayne, Denver, Milwaukee, Miami, Norfolk, and the third most-watched program on the company's Fox affiliates in Nashville, San Diego, Madison (Wisconsin), Austin (Texas), Lafayette (Indiana). Following Queen of the Willis' high ratings among NoSirGifts owned Fox affiliates and independent stations, and in ten markets where Fox affilated with a NoSirGifts-owned station became the number 1 station. The show's popularity and reruns rekindled NoSirGifts' interest in it. They ordered 45 new episodes in 2017, marking the first revival of a television show based on stong rerun ratings. NoSirGifts president Jackson Steele said that it was one of her most difficult decisions to cancel the show, and was therefore happy it would return.[1]
"Ten Years to Life" was the first episode to be broadcast after the show's cancellation. It was written and directed by Zinn and believed the show's six-year hiatus was beneficial because many shows do not normally have hiatuses, and towards the end of their seasons "... you see a lot more LGBTQ and (bodily function) jokes and signs of a fatigued staff that their brains are just fried".[2] With "Ten Years to Life", the writing staff tried to keep the show "... exactly as it was" before its cancellation, and did not "... have the desire to make it any slicker" than it already was.
