Big Shots, the A-Channel’s freshman show about four competitive CEOs, is being preempted for the rest of the month after ABC decided to shelve it south of the border. ABC has taken the show’s three remaining eps off the air and will replace it with Private Practice repeats. CTVglobemedia’s A-Channel programmers have not yet decided what will replace Big Shots in the Thursday 10 pm time slot.

Some US media writers called ABC’s decision to pull the show a head-scratcher, considering the ongoing writers’ strike. However, it is likely that ABC may be saving its originals for the New Year.

At the time of the upfronts, Big Shots was touted as a staple of CTV’s Thursday night sked. In the fall, the show hit the BBM/Nielsen’s national Top 30 chart twice (only once recording more than a million viewers). It failed to crack the Top 20. By mid-October, CTV had replaced Big Shots with ER in the Thursday 10 pm time slot.

Big Shots stars (pictured) Dylan McDermott as Duncan Collinsworth, Christopher Titus as Brody Johns, Michael Vartan as James Walker and Joshua Malina as Karl Mixworthy.

Other freshman shows that recently made the news? NBC renewed Chuck and the cop drama Life, although the US net cancelled Journeyman (which takes that show off of Global’s sked) and hasn’t given any official word on Bionic Woman.