ABC was busy last week. How To Get Away With Murder wrapped its season, and chances for a season five are low. Ratings for the show were only fair, with its highest rated episode was a crossover with the much more popular Scandal. ABC also had two premieres last week. Deception, the crime drama with a magic hook, opened well, if it doesn't slip too much should see a renewal. Legal drama, For The People did not start very strong, and if its numbers don't come up by a fair bit, there won't be a season two. ABC also renewed several of its reality/competition programs: America's Funniest Home Videos, The Bachelor, Child Support, and Dancing with the Stars all received renewal notices last week.
Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
American Idol (Sunday) (premiere) | 2.3 | 10.5 | |
The Good Doctor | 1.8 | 10.0 | Renewed |
American Idol (Monday) | 1.8 | 8.4 | |
Grey's Anatomy | 1.8 | 7.2 | |
Deception (premiere) | 1.2 | 5.9 | |
America's Funniest Home Videos | 1.1 | 5.9 | Renewed |
The Middle | 1.1 | 4.8 | Final Season |
Scandal | 1.1 | 4.7 | Final Season |
How To Get Away With Murder (finale) | 1.0 | 3.8 | |
American Housewife | 1.0 | 3.7 | |
Modern Family (rerun) | 1.0 | 3.5 | Renewed |
Speechless | 0.9 | 3.9 | |
Speechless | 0.9 | 3.5 | |
Fresh Off The Boat | 0.9 | 3.1 | |
Black-ish | 0.9 | 3.0 | |
Black-ish | 0.9 | 2.9 | |
For The People (premiere) | 0.8 | 3.2 | |
Designated Survivor | 0.7 | 3.7 | |
20/20 Friday | 0.6 | 3.5 | |
20/20 Saturday | 0.5 | 3.5 | |
Once Upon A Time | 0.5 | 2.5 | Canceled |
Agents of SHIELD | 0.5 | 2.1 | |
Deception (rerun) | 0.4 | 2.2 | |
For The People (rerun) | 0.3 | 2.1 |
The two-week NCAA Basketball Tournament started on CBS. Survivor managed to top the ratings, however with NCIS and Bull sandwiched in between basketball ratings. The writing is on the wall for Living Biblically as it wallowed near the bottom of the chart with Madam Secretary. By all rights, both should be canceled at the end of the season, but political drama just keeps chugging along.
Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
Survivor | 1.7 | 8.4 | |
NCAA Tournament (Saturday) | 1.7 | 6.2 | |
NCAA Tournament (Thursday early) | 1.7 | 5.9 | |
NCIS | 15 | 13.3 | |
NCAA Tournament (Thursday late) | 1.4 | 4.3 | |
Bull | 1.2 | 10.6 | |
NCAA Tournament (Friday early) | 1.2 | 4.8 | |
NCAA Tournament (Friday mid) | 1.2 | 4.7 | |
The Big Bang Theory (rerun) | 1.1 | 7.1 | Renewed |
NCAA Tournament (Friday late) | 1.1 | 3.8 | |
NCIS: New Orleans | 1.0 | 9.2 | |
Man with a Plan | 1.0 | 6.3 | |
60 Minutes | 0.9 | 9.4 | |
60 Minutes | 0.9 | 8.4 | |
NCIS: Los Angeles | 0.9 | 8.0 | |
Young Sheldon (rerun) | 0.9 | 5.9 | Renewed |
Criminal Minds | 0.9 | 5.7 | |
48 Hours | 0.9 | 3.8 | |
Living Biblically | 0.7 | 4.7 | |
Madam Secretary | 0.6 | 6.3 | |
NCIS (rerun) | 0.6 | 4.5 | |
NCIS (rerun) | 0.6 | 4.5 |
NBC made a surprise announcement late in the week that Will & Grace would be renewed for a third season (season two was announced soon after the premiere last year). It's a bit of a surprise, as the show didn't seem to be performing at numbers that would fill execs with that sort of confidence. This Is Us wrapped its season with good numbers though lower than the finale from last year. The Peacock Network had two premieres last week. Rise opened with good numbers, Timeless however did not start very well, down a bit from where it ended last year. If the numbers don't bounce back, fans better enjoy the reprieve as there won't be season three. Good Girls dipped several tenths; Champions held from its premiere, but that won't save the show.
Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
This Is Us (finale) | 2.8 | 10.9 | Renewed |
The Voice (Monday) | 2.4 | 11.9 | |
The Voice (Tuesday) | 2.3 | 11.2 | |
Law & Order: SVU | 1.3 | 6.1 | |
Chicago PD | 1.2 | 6.5 | |
Rise (premiere) | 1.2 | 5.5 | |
Will & Grace | 1.2 | 4.7 | Renewed |
Good Girls | 1.0 | 4.5 | |
Superstore | 1.0 | 3.9 | Renewed |
The Blacklist | 0.9 | 5.5 | |
American Ninja Warrior: USA vs the World | 0.9 | 3.6 | |
AP Bio | 0.9 | 3.1 | |
Timeless (premiere) | 0.8 | 3.0 | |
Champions | 0.7 | 3.0 | |
Dateline Friday | 0.6 | 3.8 | |
Chicago Fire (rerun) | 0.6 | 3.6 | |
Blindspot | 0.6 | 3.4 | |
Dateline Saturday | 0.6 | 3.2 | |
Vintage SNL | 0.6 | 2.5 | |
Taken | 0.5 | 3.2 | |
Superstore (rerun) | 0.3 | 1.6 | |
Will & Grace (rerun) | 0.2 | 1.5 |
No real surprises at FOX last week, though several programs dipped. 9-1-1 stayed at the top, steady with last week's numbers. The Resident and Gotham each lost a tenth while The X-Files lost two tenths. Lucifer and LA To Vegas were steady.
Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
9-1-1 | 1.6 | 6.5 | Renewed |
O.J. Simpson The Lost Confession? | 1.2 | 4.5 | |
Masterchef Junior | 0.9 | 3.4 | |
The Resident | 0.8 | 3.8 | |
Bob's Burgers | 0.8 | 1.8 | |
Lucifer | 0.7 | 3.0 | |
The X-Files | 0.7 | 3.0 | |
LA To Vegas | 0.7 | 2.0 | |
9-1-1 (rerun) | 0.6 | 2.6 | |
Gotham | 0.6 | 2.5 | |
Showtime at the Apollo | 0.6 | 2.5 | |
The Mick | 0.6 | 1.8 | |
Lethal Weapon (rerun) | 0.5 | 2.0 | |
Bob's Burgers (rerun) | 0.5 | 1.5 | |
Showtime at the Apollo (rerun) | 0.3 | 1.5 | |
Masterchef Junior (rerun) | 0.3 | 1.3 |
The CW had the dubious honor of an original episode earning a 0.1 rating last week. Even having to fill another night of programming next fall, it seems a tough sell to expect Dynasty to see another season with those numbers. Speaking of tough, the network would have been better served with a rerun of Supernatural in its weekly slot as opposed to the Tough Mudder special. Life Sentence lost a hundred thousand viewers from its premiere, doubtful it will see a renewal either. The Flash and Black Lightning held steady, Riverdale lost a tenth.
Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
The Flash | 0.7 | 2.1 | |
Black Lightning | 0.5 | 1.4 | |
Legends of Tomorrow | 0.4 | 1.3 | |
Riverdale | 0.4 | 1.2 | |
iZombie | 0.3 | 0.8 | |
Life Sentence | 0.2 | 0.6 | |
Jane The Virgin | 0.2 | 0.6 | |
Tough Mudder: Tougher Together | 0.2 | 0.5 | |
Arrow (rerun) | 0.2 | 0.5 | |
Dynasty | 0.1 | 0.7 |
Renewal news is starting to trickle out from networks, expect to hear about a couple of renewals a week from now until upfronts at the beginning of May. Will your favorites make it another year?
Written by LadyShelley on Mar 19, 2018
How Survivor keeps surviving is amazing. The current season is the worst bunch I have ever seen and I have watched them all... The current losing tribe keeps voting off strongest player and wonders why it keeps losing...
@LadyShelley I know how the "Cease to Exist Bruin" (and his descendant the "Not Radio Sad Harvester") do their renewal/cancel picks but my comment was more of the state we are in now. Not long ago a show under a 2.0 was likely to be canceled (because the network average was way above that) and just a short time later a 2.0 is a mega hit ... Dynasty hit a 0.1 and, according to Moonves, still makes money for CBS and will therefore likely get renewed ... a feckin' 0.1 ... sorry, re-watching "Father Ted" ... anywho, it's harder to say for sure now what lives and dies because of unseen numbers unlike a few years ago when the rules you articulated were on much sounder ground. Hawaii Five-0 survived because CBS had a $5 million per syndication deal ... it could have ended up owing Nielsen ratings points and CBS would have still renewed it with a deal like that on the table.
@SilverSurfer Ratings always go down, it's just a fact of TV life. That's why I only compare shows in the same network to each other, not to the competition. (I don't list the Top 25 shows overall for example, its meaningless.) The general rule of thumb still applies: If a program rates at or higher than the network average, it will be renewed. Depending on how far below that average a program is, determines how likely it is to be canceled. If a network average is 1.2 and your show is drawing a 0.7, there aren't enough overseas or Netflix deals in the world that are going to save it. Unless the show has managed to survive for three seasons, then a season four is practically guaranteed for syndication deals. Blindspot is a great example of this, it's in season three now, its ratings are woeful, but it will get renewed in order to pump up the episode count to sell the syndication rights off to cable.
It's a whole brave new world out there in broadcast TV land. Almost none of the shows on now would have been renewed, with their current rating numbers, even just 10 years ago. Heck most would have been pulled off the air and banished to summer burn off.
Networks are more and more picking shows from their corporate sister studios and factoring in foreign sales, online streaming sales (much more than DVD/Blu-ray sales) as well as licensing to streaming services like Netflix.
Used to be the numbers (publicly available numbers) told the tale but now numbers we rarely ever get to see come into play making it much harder, IMHO, to pick what lives and what dies each season. ymmv
Kevin (Probably) Saves The World is most likely canceled. It just never gained much of an audience. Arrow is probably safe for another year, CW needs to fill Sunday night and for The CW, the ratings haven't been bad, Riverdale got renewed with an average 0.3 I think. Designated Survivor could go either way. It will depend on how secure ABC feels with their pilots. And they have already canceled Once Upon A Time, SHIELD is probably gone as well, so there could be room in the schedule.
I wonder when ABC will announce whether or not Kevin (Probably) Saves the World is renewed. I hope it will be. As for my favorites on CW, looks like it might be a toss up if Arrow gets renewed, since the ratings appear to be getting lower. And for Designated Survivor, what are the chances that it'll get a third season?