Privileged ends its season tonight. Say goodbye, it's going to be cancelled. I do think both Everybody Hates Chris and The Game are in some danger of being cancelled, but since I am mystified as to the CW's decision process behind those two shows, I'm rating them no worse than a toss up.
Unsurprisingly to me and the Renew/Cancel Index, the CW has officially renewed Smallville, Gossip Girl, 90210, America's Next Top Model, One Tree Hill and Supernatural for next season.
This is a breakdown of CW scripted shows and their renewal and cancellation prospects. Here are the others:
Our Renew / Cancel index predicts potential renewal for *next* season: Cancelled/Not Returning, In Danger, or Renewal Likely for 2009-10.
| PROGRAM | Net | STD 18-49 (LIVE+SD) (000) | Network Avg. STD 18-49 | Renew/ Cancel index | Status |
| EASY MONEY | CW | 288 | 1,050 | 0.27 | cancelled |
| VALENTINE | CW | 345 | 1,050 | 0.33 | cancelled |
| EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS | CW | 814 | 1,050 | 0.78 | |
| THE GAME | CW | 905 | 1,050 | 0.86 | |
| PRIVILEGED | CW | 916 | 1,050 | 0.87 | |
| 90210 | CW | 1,602 | 1,050 | 1.53 | |
| SUPERNATURAL | CW | 1,604 | 1,050 | 1.53 | |
| One Tree Hill | CW | 1,654 | 1,050 | 1.58 | |
| Gossip Girl | CW | 1,674 | 1,050 | 1.59 | |
| Smallville | CW | 1,898 | 1,050 | 1.81 |
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Notes:
Friday night - Friday is quickly becoming an 18-49 wasteland, so these shows may be allowed a lower threshold for success than shows on other nights. I honestly have no idea what criteria the CW will use in keeping or not keeping Everybody Hates Chris and The Game.
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.
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.
