Update: 'Desperate Housewives' to End After This Season, Series Creator Explains Why

Update: "Desperate Housewives" producer Marc Cherry told the Television Critics Association today why he was shutting down the show:

“I think the only thing harder than creating a hit show is knowing when to end it,” said Cherry.

"It’s weighed on my mind for quite a while now, but because I’ve been working on television for 23 years, I’ve also been very aware of shows overstaying their welcome. They drift on too long, people forget them and they’re booted off unceremoniously. I wanted to go out while the network still saw us as a viable show, while we were still doing well in the ratings. I wanted to go out in the classiest way possible.”

Original Story:

Deadline and Entertainment Weekly are reporting that, after a long series of protracted negotiations with the show's cast and creators, "Desperate Housewives" will be ending in May of 2012.

According to Deadline, "ABC will announce on Sunday at the Television Critics Association's press tour that this 2011-2012 season will be the last for long-running 'Desperate Housewives.'"

The announcement apparently caught the cast completely by surprise.

"Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, and Eva Longoria Parker are shocked and saddened since the ABC Studios series created by Marc Cherry was expected to continue until 2013 after the longtime showrunner had said that he wanted the show to go for 9 seasons," said Nikki Finke of Deadline.

But to hear Entertainment Weekly tell it, the ladies should not have been too shocked. While the series was one of the most critically acclaimed and profitable TV shows on the air, the negotiations have apparently been going poorly for quite a while, based largely on the demands for big bucks the cast was making.

"Earning north of $400,000 per episode, they were already among the highest-paid actresses in prime time" said EW, but they were apparently pushing for higher salaries as the show went into its eighth season.

Plus, the series dropped from 14.1 million viewers to 11.9 million in the last year and has dropped a full rating point over the last three years. It has half the audience it had during its first season, and even more competition from Sunday Night Football, increasing volumes of quality Sunday night fall cable programming and a formidable foe in "The Good Wife" on CBS.

The show was also the closest thing prime-time has to an honest-to-god soap opera and, well, we know how ABC feels about those.

The (apparently last) season premiere of "Desperate Housewives" airs September 25th.