'Spin City' is an American sitcom television series that ran from 1996 to 2002 on ABC. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show was based on a fictional local government running New York City, and originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor of New York. The show was cancelled in 2002 due to low ratings from the 2001–2002 season and a change in target demographics.In 2000, Paramount Television (which produced Michael J. Fox's earlier sitcom, Family Ties) began syndicating the series to local stations (Paramount parent Viacom would later buy the show's producer DreamWorks). It and successor companies owned distribution rights until 2009, when DreamWorks became independent again. The syndication rights are currently held by ABC's syndication arm, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures will begin distributing DreamWorks live-action films in 2009.