Remember March 2020? Remember Tiger King and the toilet paper shortage? Remember when we thought this quarantine was going to be only two weeks long? Something else you may remember from those early quarantine days is Some Good News. Also known as SGN, this YouTube show was hosted by John Krazinski and, as the name suggests, focused on good news, while all the real news channels were swarmed with sad, depressing, and worrisome anecdotes about death tolls and oncoming threats. After eight episodes the show suddenly disappeared, but what happened?

The first episode of SGN was posted on March 29th, 2020. It featured Krazinski and his old friend Steve Carell, his co-star on the sitcom The Office. They chat about the 15th anniversary of the sitcom and then Krazinski talks with a 15-year-old cancer survivor named Coco, who shares the heart-warming story of a huge end-of-chemo car parade and distanced-celebration. 

The following episodes came out once every week and featured the likes of Emily Blunt (Krazinski’s wife), David Ortiz, and the entire casts of Hamilton and The Office. Guy Fieri, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Justin Timberlake, Billie Eilish, the Jonas Brothers, were among a large group of incredibly famous celebrity guests. At the end of the first “season,” the show had raised over two million dollars for various charities. 

But, after the season-concluding “SGN community episode,” Krazinski announced that the show would be taking a break, explaining that his job as 

good-news-spreader was done. After that, there began some media speculation that Krazinski had sold the rights to the show to Viacom CBS, and shortly after the rumors started CBS confirmed the news by posting on Twitter, “On @johnkrasinski’s very first episode of @somegoodnews, he asked why there has never been a news show dedicated entirely to good news. Well, we at CBS agree and we are proud to welcome SGN to @CBS and the @CBSNews family.” This confirmation left many fans torn. The entire purpose of the show was to bring free good news to everyone, and many, including myself, were disappointed that the show was being put behind a paywall. It was also revealed that Krazinski would no longer be host, but executive producer. 

Part of the appeal of SGN was its home quality. Just Krazinski, sitting behind his desk with a logo that had been made by his daughters. Many fans felt that creating a network version of the show would dissolve all the qualities that made the show unique and enjoyable in the first place.

On May 27th, 2020, Krazinski appeared on Instagram Live to explain the situation to his furious fans. “It was one of those things where I was only planning on doing eight [episodes] during quarantine because I have these other things that I’m going to be having to do very soon…More than that…writing, directing, and producing — all those things — with a couple of my friends was so much.” 

We have no idea when the show will premiere, or if after all the backlash it has been canceled altogether. But with mixed reactions from fans, many of them overwhelmingly negative, it seems sure that this new network, Some Good News, will be nowhere near as popular as its free, homemade predecessor.