NBC premiered two new comedies last week. Dwayne Johnson's semi-autobiographical, Young Rock, and SNL alum, Kenan Thompson's new series, Kenan, both opened well. Assuming they both hold most of that audience past the curiosity stage, both should be easy renewals. The Peacock's other new comedy, Mr Mayor is holding its own with steady numbers each week, and now has some serious competition in the bid to get renewed.
| Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
| This Is Us | 1.1 | 5.7 | Renewed (through 2022) |
| Chicago Fire | 1.0 | 7.3 | Renewed (through 2023) |
| Young Rock (premiere) | 1.0 | 5.3 | |
| Chicago Med | 0.9 | 7.6 | Renewed (through 2023) |
| Chicago PD | 0.8 | 5.9 | Renewed (through 2023) |
| Kenan (premiere) | 0.8 | 4.2 | |
| Law & Order: SVU | 0.7 | 4.0 | Renewed (through 2023) |
| Ellen's Game of Games | 0.6 | 3.3 | |
| The Wall | 0.6 | 3.0 | |
| Dateline (Thursday) | 0.5 | 3.2 | |
| Mr Mayor | 0.5 | 2.6 | |
| The Wall | 0.5 | 2.4 | |
| The Weakest Link (rerun) | 0.5 | 2.4 | |
| Dateline (Friday) | 0.4 | 3.0 | |
| Ellen's Game of Games (rerun) | 0.4 | 1.9 | |
| The Blacklist | 0.3 | 3.2 | Renewed |
| Grand Ole Opry 90 Years of Country Music | 0.3 | 2.8 | |
| Weakest Link (rerun) | 0.3 | 2.2 | |
| Vintage SNL | 0.3 | 2.2 | |
| Nurses | 0.3 | 2.1 | Import |
| The Wall (rerun) | 0.3 | 1.8 | |
| Young Rock (rerun) | 0.3 | 1.8 |
ABC premiered a new season of American Idol last week, down a bit from last year. The Rookie will take the stronger lead-in, however. Nathan Fillion's drama gained a couple of tenths from its last new episode a couple of weeks ago. Black-ish gained a tenth. Mixed-ish was steady but low. The show squeaked a renewal last year, not sure it will manage it again. For Life is likely done. The network took a chance renewing it once, but the audience never materialised.
| Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
| The Bachelor | 1.4 | 5.5 | |
| American Idol (premiere) | 1.2 | 6.9 | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos | 0.8 | 6.0 | |
| Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune | 0.8 | 5.8 | |
| Big Sky | 0.7 | 4.1 | |
| The Good Doctor | 0.6 | 4.4 | |
| Shark Tank | 0.6 | 4.4 | |
| The Rookie | 0.6 | 4.1 | |
| The Chase | 0.6 | 4.1 | |
| To Tell The Truth | 0.6 | 4.0 | |
| The Goldbergs (rerun) | 0.6 | 3.0 | |
| Black-ish | 0.6 | 2.7 | |
| 20/20 | 0.5 | 3.1 | |
| NBA Basketball | 0.5 | 1.8 | |
| The Hustler | 0.4 | 2.6 | |
| Mixed-ish | 0.4 | 2.1 | |
| American Housewife (rerun) | 0.4 | 2.1 | |
| The Conners (rerun) | 0.4 | 2.1 | |
| Call Your Mother (rerun) | 0.4 | 1.8 | |
| For Life | 0.3 | 1.5 | |
| NBA Countdown | 0.3 | 1.5 |
CBS announced a couple of surprise cancellations last week. Mom will wrap its eight-season run in May. NCIS: New Orleans will also wrap after seven seasons. Rumors are circulating that NCIS bosses are interested in a new spinoff based in Hawai'i, not sure if that had anything to do with the end of NOLA or not. Fans of SWAT should start worrying, however. Its ratings regularly put it at the bottom of the ratings chart, and its audience is half of NOLA's. Don't expect Clarice to last very long either. It is not doing well anchoring the Thursday comedy block. Not sure if the network execs would be interested in moving it around or not. The Equalizer, however, should be fine assuming it holds onto its second-week audience.
| Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
| The Equalizer | 0.9 | 8.2 | |
| 60 Minutes | 0.8 | 9.4 | |
| Young Sheldon | 0.8 | 7.5 | |
| NCIS: Los Angeles | 0.7 | 6.1 | |
| The Neighborhood (rerun) | 0.7 | 4.5 | |
| B Positive | 0.6 | 5.0 | |
| Bob (Hearts) Abishola (rerun) | 0.6 | 4.0 | |
| NCIS (rerun) | 0.5 | 5.8 | |
| Magnum PI | 0.5 | 5.7 | |
| Mom | 0.5 | 5.2 | Cancelled |
| NCIS: New Orleans | 0.5 | 5.0 | Cancelled |
| MacGyver | 0.5 | 4.8 | |
| SEAL Team | 0.5 | 3.8 | |
| Tough As Nails | 0.5 | 3.4 | |
| The Equalizer (rerun) | 0.4 | 4.3 | |
| Blue Bloods (rerun) | 0.4 | 4.3 | |
| Clarice | 0.4 | 4.0 | |
| The Unicorn | 0.4 | 3.7 | |
| FBI: Most Wanted (rerun) | 0.4 | 3.6 | |
| SWAT | 0.4 | 3.0 | |
| 48 Hours | 0.3 | 3.1 | |
| Bull (rerun) | 0.3 | 3.0 | |
| All Rise (rerun) | 0.3 | 2.6 | |
| NCIS Los Angeles (rerun) | 0.2 | 2.5 | |
| 48 Hours | 0.2 | 2.4 |
FOX wrapped the first season of The Masked Dancer last week, up a tenth from the previous week. 9-1-1 lost a tenth, 9-1-1 Lone Star was steady. Both should be easy renewals. Prodigal Son remained steady but low. The network has been adding more and more unscripted content as its scripted shows are cancelled. Prodigal Son's future may depend more on what direction the network wants to move in, than strictly on numbers.
| Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
| 9-1-1 | 1.0 | 6.8 | |
| 9-1-1 Lone Star | 0.9 | 5.7 | |
| Daytona 500 | 0.7 | 4.0 | |
| The Masked Dancer (finale) | 0.7 | 3.2 | |
| Hell's Kitchen | 0.7 | 2.6 | |
| The Resident | 0.6 | 3.8 | |
| Call Me Kat | 0.5 | 2.1 | |
| WWE: Friday Night Smackdown | 0.5 | 2.1 | |
| Last Man Standing | 0.4 | 2.3 | Final Season |
| Prodigal Son | 0.4 | 2.1 | |
| Name That Tune (rerun) | 0.2 | 1.0 | |
| 9-1-1 (rerun) | 0.1 | 0.6 |
The CW had a typical CW week, no real surprises. All American topped the ratings chart again, even though Walker had a larger audience. The difference between the Monday night competition versus Thursday night when it comes to audience percentage. Batwoman and Charmed picked up a couple hundred thousand viewers without the Super Bowl to compete against. Black Lightning dropped one hundred thousand viewers from its premiere.
| Program | Rating | Millions of Viewers | Renew/Cancel |
| All American | 0.3 | 0.7 | Renewed |
| Walker | 0.2 | 1.7 | Renewed |
| Whose Line Is it Anyway? | 0.2 | 0.8 | |
| Whose Line Is it Anyway? (rerun) | 0.1 | 0.7 | |
| Penn & Teller Fool Us | 0.1 | 0.7 | |
| Riverdale | 0.1 | 0.6 | Renewed |
| Batwoman | 0.1 | 0.5 | Renewed |
| Legacies | 0.1 | 0.5 | Renewed |
| Charmed | 0.1 | 0.4 | Renewed |
| Black Lightning | 0.1 | 0.4 | Final Season |
| Two Sentence Horror Stories | 0.1 | 0.4 | |
| Trickster | 0.1 | 0.4 | Import |
| Nancy Drew | 0.1 | 0.4 | Renewed |
| Two Sentence Horror Stories (rerun) | 0.1 | 0.3 |
Cancel and renewal announcements have begun. Will your favorite shows live to see another season?
Written by LadyShelley on Feb 22, 2021
If any other scripted drama goes, it will be SWAT. As I said in the article, its viewer numbers are half of NCIS: NOLA. Granted NOLA probably lost an internal budget war with the NCIS productions more than the network wanting the cancel the show, but if the network plans to drop another veteran show, SWAT will be the one to go.
Hawaii Five-0 rebootis probably my all-time favorite police procedural tv show. The cast was true gold and the story had just a perfect balance of personal drama.
MacGyver is fun, but the longer I watch it the most I get fed up with the inner struggles of the main character. Too much drama.
Both Seal Team and S.W.A.T. delved too deep into social issues for me, it just doesn't give me the fun and relaxing time I want from the show. And from what I have seen around people have similar feelings. If I had to bet I would say S.W.A.T. will be the first to go. But these networks surprised me before, you can never be sure.
I loved the rebooted Hawaii Five-0 (and I'm old enough to have watched some of the original series as well) Lenkov and his team just hit gold with that cast and it worked. I watched and really enjoyed the original RDA MacGyver and I gave the reboot a shot based on how well Five-0 worked, but the spark was gone. Maybe because the original was not an ensemble cast show? Certainly, the fact that Justin Hires' character is not only annoying but unnecessary was part of it. I stopped watching by season 3. The new version of Magnum PI has some of the same issues. The production turned a solo act into an ensemble and the whole thing with Higgins now his partner and the forced sexual tension is just ... meh. With that said, both MacGyver and Magnum will probably be renewed. SEAL Team and SWAT have much lower ratings and would go first if the network wanted to lose another veteran show.
As for The Equalizer, so far it is a ratings winner for the network, garnering numbers equal to the original NCIS, so it's not going anywhere unless its numbers just fall off a cliff in the next couple of weeks.
I'm not sure if Clarice's problem is lack of interest (the movie was almost 30 years ago now), bad production value, or bad scheduling. It does not seem to me to be the type of show you'd want following two hours of light comedies. If its numbers don't come up though, it won't matter.
I'm curious to see if The Equalizer and MacGyver will survive past their current seasons. Fans of originals don't like the reboots, yet they manage to keep better ratings than similar standalone series.
Somewhat bummed about Mom, though not surprised with Anna Farris announcing she wasn't coming back right before the season started. I'll watch at least one more episode of Kenan, same with Clarice.