NBC has sidelined The Listener, but the show goes on, possibly for a second season, Shaftesbury Films topper Christina Jennings said Thursday.

‘Whether NBC is in or out is immaterial,’ Jennings told Playback Daily when asked about a sophomore outing for the Canadian drama after NBC said it will replace The Listener on Thursday nights with Law & Order repeats from July 30. The Peacock channel is to stream the five remaining episodes of its 13-episode order on nbc.com through August.

The series about a paramedic with telepathic powers was originally slated to run through August in U.S. primetime, but posted poor audience numbers stateside, including a 0.7 rating and 2 share among adults 18-49 last Thursday.

North of the border, The Listener will continue to air Thursdays at 7 p.m. on Space and 10 p.m. on CTV, where it has pulled in an average audience of 981,000 viewers since its June 4 bow.

Jennings said the NBC license fee for The Listener didn’t figure in the first season financing, which came instead from CTV’s license fee, a distribution advance from ShineReveille and Canadian tax credits.

ShineRevielle in turn sold the international cable and satellite TV rights for The Listener to Fox International after NBC snagged the U.S. rights from Program Partners as part of a separate deal brokered by Williams Morris.

Besides setting The Listener up at NBC, Program Partners retains the U.S. syndication rights.

Jennings said the future for The Listener now hinges on CTV and Fox International, and other international markets where ShineReveille has sold the drama.

‘It’s unfortunate,’ she said of the NBC decision on The Listener. ‘But that’s the American market. And at the end of the day, we’re not America.’

She insisted The Listener faced heavy pro sports competition out of the gates on NBC, and the U.S. network failed to put substantial marketing muscle behind the series. CTV and Fox International, by contrast, got behind the series with market dollars and clout.

‘If you promote a show and it’s on air, audiences will watch it,’ Jennings said with an eye to her series scoring with viewers in Canada and internationally, including in 180 countries in Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East via Fox International.

The Listener pulled in 793,000 viewers last Thursday on CTV, making it 16th among the top 20 programs on Canadian TV this summer.