The CW's line up on Friday and Sunday is a mess. They've got to fill 5 hours of airtime next season and they've got limited choices as to how to do it. That's the one hope that both Everybody Hates Chris and The Game have of being renewed. The "we've got nothing better" renewal. Hey, it could be worse, Privileged's season is finished and it's not going to be coming back!
This is a breakdown of CW scripted shows and their renewal and cancelation prospects. Here are the others:
Our Renew / Cancel index predicts potential renewal for *next* season: Canceled/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 | 1,030 | 0.28 | cancelled |
| VALENTINE | CW | 345 | 1,030 | 0.33 | cancelled |
| EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS | CW | 805 | 1,030 | 0.78 | |
| GAME, THE | CW | 887 | 1,030 | 0.86 | |
| PRIVILEGED | CW | 918 | 1,030 | 0.89 | |
| 90210 | CW | 1,571 | 1,030 | 1.53 | |
| SUPERNATURAL | CW | 1,576 | 1,030 | 1.53 | |
| One Tree Hill | CW | 1,611 | 1,030 | 1.56 | |
| Gossip Girl | CW | 1,628 | 1,030 | 1.58 | |
| Smallville | CW | 1,851 | 1,030 | 1.80 |
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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.
I say renew Everybody Hates Chris. It’s nearing syndication territory now.
Actually, The CW has a lot of new pilots for next season including the Gossip Girl and Melrose spinoff So its possible that they can verywell fill up there Fridays and Sundays. However what they will do with Chris and The Game is still a mystery.
Ok, I am a big fan of The Game and it is a really good show. When it was on Monday nights with Girlfriends it was pulling at least 3 million viewers. Then it stuck it on Fridays, when young people like myself are out instead of at home. So its essentially no one there to watch it. But after what they did to Girlfriends last season after 7 1/2 seasons, the top show among African-Americans, I would not be surprised at anything the CW does. The CW I feel has a thin line to walk here.
I don’t really care… but has CW officially said anything about privileged? I think the season ended last week(?) but if it’s still “on the bubble” that must mean it’s not totally dead yet?
djm, CW has said nothing. Nor are they likely to. What will likely happen is that when the CW fall schedule is announced in May, Privileged will not be on it. Networks making an announcement that a show is cancelled, like ABC did with Life on Mars, is very rare.
Eddie, the politics of canceling an African-American focused show is definitely one of the factors that the CW will be considering. The politics of canceling both may make it impossible.
Lets not forget Reaper premieres tonight. Nice to get a glimpse tomorrow on its ratings to see if it has a chance for a season 3
So SUPERNATURAL is within .05 of the “Brand,” shows now? That’s incredible. We’re talking about a show that was trailed by nearly .3 in your index towards the beginning of the season?
That means SUPERNATURAL has outperformed the Brand shows since what November to catch up like that? Extraordinary.
It may finish the season in 2nd behind SMALLVILLE. Both shows will be ending after next season. The CW needs to act fast and find some good TV.
Nick, I believe most of that closing of the gap vs. GG and OTH can be chalked up to vastly superior performance in reruns.
Robert, no doubt. However GG, etc. have not been pulling the same numbers as they were at seasons start. In October Dawn was walking around like a person getting ready to say “I told you so!” to everyone. The early numbers are skewing things now. However if they trend back up she’ll be happy.
Keep The Game it is my only top 5 show still on the air
1.Jericho (ended way to early)
3.K ville (never got a chance)
4. New Amsterdam (wrong night)
5. Dirty,Sexy,Money. love it
The CW should try to pick up some cancelled shows from this season like Life on Mars,D.S.M., Boston Legal,Prison Break, and
The Network should stop (just) catering to the youngest crowd and bring in other types of shows. Im a 16 y/o (black)male and id rather watch a cop drama like L&O SVU or CSI than gossip Girl or 90210
They also need to fill the 9:00 time slot. FOX has local news so its would only be a 4 horse race instead of 5
You mean 10:00 time slot!
The biggest assclown decision in history……..dumping Smackdown! Now they are pulling record ratings on MyNetwork!
I think Privileged is goner now it should be in color brown.
Well BET is already starting to run The Game and I have read some where ( I wish I remembered where ) recently that if The CW cancels The Game that BET is looking to pick it up as a fisrt run show. As for Everybody Hates Chris the show already has been sold to second run syndication, just not knowing who as it was reported by Mediaweek during NATPE 2009
My best guess since The CW is getting out of the comedy business that the shows will be canceled. They don’t even have a comedy development department at the CW anymore so I think this is the last we see of comedies on the CW unless parent companies CBS and Warner Bros step in and have them open a block of time to run comedies during rotating schedules through out the year.
But that is just speculation since CBS is pretty much full with minimal time slots to spare that they may get to the point they need to off load some projects to CW and tell them to change the mandate of the network.
im in the central time zone. It’s 9:00 for me
id hate to live in the central time zone! what do you watch at 10pm!!
josh, the same things you watch at 11. Why is that bad?
Well, GG being hurt by House as much as it has makes me wonder if ratings w/o a new House would make the ratings pick back up. The show only went below 3-ish million viewers after House moved in.
“The CW should try to pick up some cancelled shows from this season like Life on Mars,D.S.M., Boston Legal,Prison Break.” – I know this kind of thing has been addressed before, but it really shouldn’t. Costs of production (I wonder how much James Spader and Candice Bergin would get for being The CW stars,), being known as the network of recyclables (especially ones that aren’t that good), etc.
I think Smallville is over the hill and that 90210, even with its status as the 6th-highest CW show, had a massive enough drop from the premiere that it’s not worth ruining the spirit of the original show.
I doubt the CW would pick up any of those shows. They’re already cutting back yet AGAIN on the budgets for the series’ they have renewed, i.e. Supernatural.