9-1-1 fans watching the popular procedural for six seasons on Fox were confused when Season 7 suddenly aired on ABC instead in March 2024. Yet, after digging up the details, shifting networks was far from a hasty decision and something in development for a while. Part financial and part creative, the decision to move 9-1-1 from Fox to ABC through a publicized “cancelation” appears optical, tactical, and even inevitable.