This is a breakdown of Fox scripted shows and their renewal and cancellation prospects. For the main post containing unscripted shows click here. For the Renew/Cancel Indexes for the other networks click these links:
Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles returns on Friday, February 13. The next two weeks may seem like an eternity to fans hoping for a ratings miracle in its new Friday timeslot, because that's all that will save the show from being cancelled and not renewed for another season.
While the Renew / Cancel index is most geared toward predicting potential renewal for *next* season, my color coding of the shows are guesses on what might happen this season: Cancelled/Not Returning, Not Likely To Be Renewed, or Renewal Likely for 2009-10.
| PROGRAM | Net | STD 18-49 (LIVE+SD) (000) | Network Avg. STD 18-49 | Renew/ Cancel index | Status |
| DO NOT DISTURB | FOX | 2,097 | 3,530 | 0.59 | cancelled |
| TIL DEATH (2) | FOX | 2,364 | 3,530 | 0.67 | |
| TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES | FOX | 2,726 | 3,530 | 0.77 | |
| PRISON BREAK (1) | FOX | 2,988 | 3,530 | 0.85 | final season |
| American Dad | FOX | 3,756 | 3,530 | 1.06 | |
| KING OF THE HILL | FOX | 3,944 | 3,530 | 1.12 | not renewed |
| Bones | FOX | 4,031 | 3,530 | 1.14 | |
| FRINGE | FOX | 4,327 | 3,530 | 1.23 | |
| Simpsons | FOX | 4,556 | 3,530 | 1.29 | |
| Family Guy | FOX | 4,732 | 3,530 | 1.34 | |
| 24 | FOX | 5,491 | 3,530 | 1.56 | |
| HOUSE | FOX | 5,947 | 3,530 | 1.68 | |
| Lie To Me | FOX | 6,481 | 3,530 | 1.84 |
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The Renew/Cancel Index is a show's Season To Date adults 18-49 viewership divided by its networks Season to Date average 18-49 viewership. Note that the Fox average used above is its final Season to Date average prior to American Idol (see below).
(1) Prison Break is in its final season.
(2) 'Til Death has done terribly, and has been off Fox’s schedule since October, Sony Pictures has reportedly made Fox such a cheap deal for future episodes that Fox has bought another entire season, proving that at a low enough price that even a ratings black hole is worth suffering through.
How did we come up with our Index? We found that last season, the future of a show was nearly directly related to its adults 18-49 average viewers divided by its networks 18-49 average viewers. Many other factors may matter, but they all seemed to boil down to that one number. Because American Idol so skewed Fox's 18-49 average, and would make nearly all Fox shows fall into the "cancel" range, for Fox, I used the last STD 18-49 average *before* Idol. Last season, if a show had better than 92% of its network's average 18-49 viewership (0.92 in our index) it was pretty safe, below that level it was in danger.
Remember that plenty can change before the end of the season, particularly for the shows with indexes between 0.80 and last season’s renewal line of 0.92. The list is presented in a (and has to be, since I cannot predict future ratings) “what would happen if the season ended today” mode. Could the renewal line be 0.86 this season? Possibly. It might also be 0.95. Might it be 0.70? No chance.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All viewership numbers are Live+SD.
Wow Lie To Me is FOX’S new best. Awesome for the show. What happened to HOUSE?
It doing better, but compared to last year: ouch
Fin, House has had reruns factored in, Lie to Me has ONE episode in this list — its premiere.
why are reruns factored in?
Fin, Nielsen’s season averages have regular timeslot rerun airings included in them. That’s just the way they do it.
wheres hole in the wall??
yeah if reruns werent included things would look alot different as certain show dont rerun well
Sam, these lists are scripted series only. This list has unscripted.
rick, that’s true for certain shows, but last season the relationship between the show’s average and the network’s average (both with in slot reruns included) was very indicative of renewal or cancellation, so that’s what we roll with.
This is another list that I believe is dead on. New dramas Fringe and Lie to Me will definitely be back. The returning shows Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Dad, House, Bones, 24, and even Til Death will return too. Terminator will die on fridays and it will likely bring Dollhouse down with it. Prison Break and King of the Hill are both ending. No word on what will happen with Fifth Grader and Lyrics but those could probably return.
Lie to me is a great show, I think it will bring a little better ratings than fringe, but it will be in that area. TSCC is most likely already canceled, but they are not saying because of the advertisers
look, if they canned Prison Break there’s no way Terminator will be back, unless this “ratings miracle” happens.
Lie to Me will get low!
And I think Terminator will not have a 3rd season.
Advertisers lurrve TSCC
They’ve stuck with it becasue of the type of people who watch it (computer nerds who love scifi spend money on the shows [and the shows products] they like; that’s how the Stargate franchise has lasted for so long), instead of how many people the Nielsen says it brings in
Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles will be renewed because it’s being watched on HULU and dowloaded on itunes and Amazon by a ton of people , and TVbytheNumbers will never factor those things….into it’s numbers.
Fox likes T:SCC creatively. As opposed to Prison Break, which Reilly admiited was played out.
Reilly on T:SCC’s fate. “If it does a job on Friday night, that would really be very, very helpful. We’d love to have those scripted originals on Friday night, doing a sci-fi little throwback to X-Files.”
http://scifiwire.com/2009/01/fox-honcho-kevin-reilly-on-the-future-of-dollhouse-terminator-fringe-virtuality.php
David, I’m sure Robert and Bill would love to include downloads and online viewing, but they don’t have access to those numbers. The numbers we have seen are….less than impressive (as in, under 100,000 viewers).
To clarify, the numbers I remember were for downloads, not streaming. The only reports of streaming are “per stream” (with 6 or 7 streams per episode because of the commercials) and don’t show how many watch the entire episode.
we never actually saw any numbers for streaming for TSCC, which may be big. But the thing is given how much money that’s making the network (hardly anything), the network isn’t likely to count them either.
And “oh please!!” on Stargate. As far as SG1, the first five years it was on, it was on SHOWTIME, a premium cable channel (but it was distributed via syndication and Sky One in the UK). And then for the rest of its run it was on SCIFI, which isn’t a broadcast network. If TSCC were being produced at the cost of SG1, or Atlantis or BSG and drawing 2 million viewers on SCIFI, I’d feel a lot better about its renewal prospects than I feel about 5 million viewers on FOX.
Lie to Me definitely won’t finish as FOX’s #1 scripted show, right now just benefiting from post Idol slot and it’s premiere episode. House on the upswing so far on Monday’s, Lie will drop further when it moves to 8, that’s what will determine its renewal chances. FOX may even look at just those episodes ratings when deciding. I think it still has a decent shot, but fans of the show should not get too excited just yet.
Fringe is moving up as well because of Idol, likely will bump up behind 24 by the end of the season. Will be interesting how FOX handles Fringe next season. While it’s not quite like 24 or LOST which run better without gaps or repeats, it may be another show that FOX would want to premiere in January instead of the fall. I could see House staying on Mondays due to it performing well there and also this would potentially give it a more permanent home and possibly wouldn’t be impacted by the January shuffle that happens when Idol returns. Fox seems to really have no bubble shows right now, seems fairly clear cut what they will do.
I like this Reily guy.