Exec-Producer Suarez Exits 8 Simple Rules

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Flody Suarez, executive producer of ABC’s 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, is leaving the show, ABC confirmed.

Sources said Suarez and Tom Shadyac, the show’s creator and head of its production company, Shady Acres Entertainment, had differing opinions on how the show should be managed.

Tracy Gamble, the show’s head writer and showrunner, remains at the helm and Suarez’s departure should cause no creative changes in the program, ABC says. As Suarez exits, David Spade is getting ready to guest star. Spade, star of NBC’s Just Shoot Me and once a high-profile member of the Saturday Night Live cast, will shoot episodes in December for likely air in February.

8 Simple Rules, based on W. Bruce Cameron’s best-selling book, is from Touchstone Television with Gamble, Shadyac and Michael Bostick executive producing.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.