I would love to be able to stick my head in the sand like a TV executive.

Now, granted, I don’t know too much about what they do, but I know one thing that they do – make decisions that don’t seem to make any amount of common sense. The third season of a capella singing show The Sing-Off  ended a good bit ago and with very little fanfare after a season that was overly long for the premise.

Since then though its winners Pentatonix have started to blow up with millions of youtube hits, high profile media appearances, and their first non-Sing-Off release coming out soon. By all accounts Pentatonix is well on their way to being the high profile act that the show wanted to produce. It’s a far cry from season two winners Committed, who God bless ’em, were nearly impossible to find on the internet at this point after winning the show.

A capella may finally make it, and NBC won’t be able to capitalize.

The decision doesn’t come without merit – the show’s ratings sagged badly in the third season. But to cancel it is to ignore what really happened – NBC took a successful format for the show and broke it. For its first two seasons the Sing-Off was an in between season treat for music lovers, it was a short season and did well enough to be renewed twice. Then in a fit of brilliance the network decided to try and make it one of its bigger reality competition shows.

Problem is, no one wanted that.

I’m sure it made someone some money, but this show was never going to have the market share of a show like The Voice or American Idol. It lacks the flash of other shows where the contestants have to have less talent, it always stayed away from manufacturing drama just to do it, and it was just too smart. It was a nerd’s show, I mean one of the judges was Ben Folds, come on! Anyone with any sense could have seen this coming when they announced a full season of a capella.

All isn’t lost, I suppose, there’s a chance that a cable network could have need of an inter-season show that would garner consistent ratings, but I don’t know how likely that is. It’s really a shame though. I had the opportunity to work with people around the show and they were all huge music lovers, and not to mention fantastic people. I truly wish them the best.

I also hope Pentatonix becomes a huge smash hit and it makes NBC look really, really stupid. Yes, I am that petty. Deal with it.