‘Making the Band’ Got Canceled in 2009 and a Revival Was Also Scrapped

These days, Diddy has much bigger things to worry about than the fate of his once hugely successful TV show. Even so, many fans of Making the Band are wondering why the show is no longer on the air, and whether there’s any chance that some form of it will return.

Making the Band was a reality series that existed in several different iterations. Each iteration consisted of several seasons and focused on a single musical act that had been assembled by Diddy. The show ended in 2009, and it doesn’t seem like its once-promised return is all that imminent.

Making the Band first premiered in 2000, and it lasted until 2009. The show was canceled by MTV, although a spin-off called Making His Band did eventually debut. That series was focused on Diddy’s search to build his own band, and it was eventually put on hiatus and then canceled after its first season due to low ratings.

Making the Band wasn't a defining hit of the reality TV boom of the early 2000s, but it did last long enough to produce several musical acts that you might have heard of, including Danity Kane and O-Town. The series also offered an on-the-ground look at what it’s like to try to make it in the music business, and it was a revelation in that respect. Of course, given Diddy’s legal troubles, it seems unlikely that a version of the show featuring him will ever return.

In 2019, Diddy announced that a Making the Band reboot would be coming in 2020. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the live auditions for that season had to be canceled, and the entire reboot was ultimately scrapped amid the shakeups that were caused by the pandemic. At the time, Diddy said that he was planning to take the show worldwide to find the best talent possible.

“It’s not just about America and America’s music. It’s about everybody’s voice,” he said in a video announcing the reboot. “So we’re doing a global talent search.”

The scrapped reboot turned out to be something of a fortunate accident, though, given that the show would likely have had to be canceled anyway in light of the various charges that Diddy is currently facing.

When the show was originally canceled back in 2009, it seems like the main deciding factor was just that it had run its course as a cultural phenomenon. And, while it seems unlikely that a version of Making the Band will be back featuring Diddy anytime soon, that doesn’t mean the show itself is dead.

The 2020 reboot never got off the ground, but at some point, someone is going to try to do something similar. After all, One Direction only existed because Simon Cowell had the foresight to put the boys together when they were competing on the British X-Factor.