1.2 Billion Minutes Won't Save 'Ted' From Likely Cancellation

Peacock couldn't ask for a more successful show than Ted, the TV prequel to Seth MacFarlane's movie franchise of the same name - however, the adult comedy series is unlikely be renewed for a third season.

Recent streaming stats compiled by Deadline show that Season 2 of Ted, following teenager John Bennett (Max Burkholder) and his anthropomorphic, foul-mouthed teddy bear (MacFarlane), has accumulated 1.2 billion minutes watched since it debuted in March. This staggering viewership number places the show as the most-watched original comedy series on any stream platform - a rarity for Peacock, which has the exclusive rights to the series.

Despite its objective success, Peacock deems the series too expensive to continue with, even though the show likely brings in a lot of its customer base. As showrunner Seth Macfarlane previously told The Wrap, "What I kept hearing [from Peacock and Universal] was, ‘Listen, the show is really expensive to produce and there's no way to do it at a lower cost.'"

Knowing cancellation was likely imminent, the Family Guy creator came up with an ending for the series. "So I said, ‘All right, I hear you loud and clear,'" MacFarlane continued. "So I wrote the last scene with Max [Burkholder] walking into a gym, presumably coming out as Mark Wahlbergin the first Ted film."

However, that's not exactly how it goes ahead in the final episode of Season 2. If you don't want to know how season 2 ends - skip ahead to the next paragraph. While we see John walk into the gym in the finale, we don't actually see Wahlberg. Rather, it's implied that he gains Wahlberg's physique in the gym, so it's not too obvious a finale for the prequel series.

Ted hasn't been officially axed yet, but the costs only seem to rise for the series. MacFarlane later stated the CGI requirements of Ted, who he also voices, was the equivalent of "doing an Avengers movie every 22 minutes with the amount of CGI that it takes, not only to animate the bear, but to act the bear."

If the show does get cancelled, however, fans can take comfort in the fact that a third Ted film is currently in the works, with MacFarlane, Wahlberg, and Amanda Seyfried all reprising their roles from the first two films.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Apr 23, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 4:13 PM.