No news out of CBS this week, no new shows, not much movement in the Index (neither is there likely to be). With only the limited run Harper's Island yet to premiere, there's not likely much happening with the numbers until CBS makes its announcements on or before its upfront presentation on May 20.
With CBS on cruise control it leaves a basket of shows in danger (The New Adventures of Old Christine, Gary Unmarried, The Unit, Cold Case, Without A Trace, Worst Week), but several of them aren't doing that badly. But those shows have a lot of fans that have a lot of nervous days between now and May 20.
The Friday shows (Flashpoint, Ghost Whisperer, Numb3rs) all have low Indexes, but lower expectations (or costs) as well, they look safe. As for Eleventh Hour, the Index says its coming back and I’m sticking with it. Those hoping I dine on crow may have their best chance with it.
Here's some past quotes to think about; CBS Chief Les Moonves says “CBS Only Has Room For 3 or 4 New Shows Next Season”, and Entertainment President Nina Tassler says about the Wednesday comedy block “We’ve improved the time period, so it’s something we’d like to stick with.” as well as CBS doing a bit of public negotiating to knock down the prices on Cold Case and Without A Trace.
This is a breakdown of CBS 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, Renewal Announced.
| PROGRAM | Net | STD 18-49 (LIVE+SD) (000) | Network Avg. STD 18-49 | Renew/ Cancel index | Status |
| THE EX-LIST | CBS | 2,443 | 3,860 | 0.63 | cancelled |
| FLASHPOINT | CBS | 2,629 | 3,860 | 0.68 | |
| OLD CHRISTINE | CBS | 2,680 | 3,860 | 0.69 | |
| GARY UNMARRIED | CBS | 2,883 | 3,860 | 0.75 | |
| NUMB3RS | CBS | 2,911 | 3,860 | 0.75 | |
| THE UNIT | CBS | 3,078 | 3,860 | 0.80 | |
| GHOST WHISPERER | CBS | 3,351 | 3,860 | 0.87 | |
| COLD CASE | CBS | 3,471 | 3,860 | 0.90 | |
| WITHOUT A TRACE | CBS | 3,500 | 3,860 | 0.91 | |
| ELEVENTH HOUR | CBS | 3,770 | 3,860 | 0.98 | |
| WORST WEEK | CBS | 3,835 | 3,860 | 0.99 | |
| CSI: NY | CBS | 4,331 | 3,860 | 1.12 | |
| NCIS | CBS | 4,524 | 3,860 | 1.17 | |
| Mentalist, THE | CBS | 4,626 | 3,860 | 1.20 | |
| Big Bang Theory, THE | CBS | 4,632 | 3,860 | 1.20 | |
| Criminal Minds | CBS | 4,731 | 3,860 | 1.23 | |
| CSI: MIAMI | CBS | 4,782 | 3,860 | 1.24 | |
| How I Met Your Mother | CBS | 4,905 | 3,860 | 1.27 | |
| Rules of Engagement | CBS | 5,094 | 3,860 | 1.32 | |
| Two and a Half Men | CBS | 6,214 | 3,860 | 1.61 | |
| CSI | CBS | 6,407 | 3,860 | 1.66 |
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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.
The New Adventures of Old Christine: CBS has tried to create a second "comedy block" this season on Wednesday by moving Christine from Monday and slotting freshman Gary Unmarried. Both have been among CBS's worst scripted performers, but will Christine be given the benefit of the doubt?
Worst Week got the best slot in CBS's lineup for a new comedy, but has performed just below average for the net. Reports are that CBS expected much more in that prime timeslot and that Worst Week will not be coming back next season.
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 can’t wait for Harper’s Island. It looks awesome.
I read in Entertainment Weekly, I think, about how if CBS wanted more Harper’s after it’s initial run, it could be brought back under a different name with a different case every year. Like how Survivor just changes location and cast every year. So it’s run may not be so limited.
I meant “different name with a different casT every year”
My bad.
The Unit and Worst Week are goners but I’m unsure about Cold Case, Without a Trace and even Eleventh Hour. My guess would be that if any or all of them are cancelled this season then CBS will make it up to Bruckheimer by picking up Miami Trauma.
CBS have some holes to fill with Sunday Nights being the main one and also finding shows that can retain the lead in of The Mentalist and CSI better than the current shows. The pilots for CBS are pretty strong and with two shows already shoo-in for 2009/10 with NCIS spin-off and The Bridge, CBS is going to have a hard time picking shows to pick up and shows to cancel.
Slightly off-topic but I wonder if NBC axed Medium would CBS pick it up as it would compatible with Ghost Whisperer and solve the Friday 9pm problem.
The Unit, Worst Week, and 11th Hour will all be cancelled. Flashpoint should be safe since it is cheap. Cold Case and Without a Trace will be renewed if the costs are driven down, if not they will be cancelled (sad). Old Christine and Gary Unmarried are on the fence as well. (Keep GU CBS!)
I hope Cold Case stays – I get a lot of nice screencaps of Kathryn Morris, one of my favorite hotties, at Superiorpics, for my collection.
It’s weird – I’ve only seen her once in a movie (a small role in Paycheck), never seen “Cold Case” since it’s a cop show which doesn’t interest me, and a couple live interviews, but she made a big impression on me in Paycheck as the hot lawyer who seduces Ben Affleck.
Rj, I agree with EVERY shot you called on the dramas, and think that those comedies are the big question mark. However, I say tie goes to Christine with the seniority over Greg.
I think Harper’s Island is going to bomb out. The idea just doesn’t sound good, and TV Guide gave the show a terrible review. In comparison, it might make Eleventh Hour look like a ratings monster. I’d prefer to see Eleventh Hour survive, since I kind of like it. It also must be relatively cheap to produce. If it got cancelled, though, I wouldn’t be too disappointed.
Thinking about it, I see that Amazing Race, Survivor, and Eleventh Hour (also sometimes The Mentalist) are the only nighttime CBS shows I watch. I’m not much of a procedurals fan.
CBS has a lot of scripted shows, even the 99% are the same old procedural thing, but it’s a good thing the don’t rely on reality shows (cough ABC cough)
Cold Cas and Without a Trace are not in any danger.
WaT is doing extremly well in it’s *deadly* time slot.
Cold Case is also doing well but it can do better if it was at 10pm instead of 9pm. Why you ask, because DH takes a chunck of the pontential female viewers who will want to watch a crime procidural with a strong female lead. If you think my theory is crap, back in the fall of 2004, Jordan had better HH ratings and even better demo ratings than Boston Legal.
Looking beyond the numbers Kathryn Morris of Cold Case was on The Regis and Kelly show on Monday morning and said that the Season finale if a two-parter which reveals all about Lily’s past life and ties up a lot of loose ends.
Draw your own conclusions (or not!) from that.
Not that there was any doubt that the “rumours” of CC and WaT being in danger were true but interestingly whereas they film the first three episodes or so of Without A Trace at the end of the Season they are not doing that this year.
Question: I know that if a re-run is shown in a programme’s usual time-slot then the figures count towards the Season.
Not that it will affect the prognosis for either show but what happens in last night’s case where because of the Presidential Broadcast both NCIS and The Mentalist were shown in different “one-off” timeslots to the norm? Will the figures count towards the Season average?
Sorry, didn’t say that the episodes of NCIS and TM last night were both new.
It looks like the Cold Case producers are putting out a possible series finale that can satisfy fans if it cancelled. Wonder what the Without a Trace producers have in minds for a season finale.
I really can’t wait for Harper’s island! its suspense and not procedural!
I am very curious to see what CBS will do with Tuesdays at 10 p.m. if WAT is gone. It’s the only show in years that has garnered decent total viewers in that time slot. I seriously doubut they’ll risk trying a new series there. So what will move? Will they move Eleventh Hour there, as a “sink or swim” test?
I know Flashpoint is low-cost, but that 0.68 ratio is waaaaay low. With CBS already skewing slightly toward older demographics, will they be even more tolerant of such a rating? Even with low demo ratings, Flashpoint still wins the timeslot by far. Timeslot win plus low-cost equals safe, perhaps?
clutz: Flashpoint is suppose to be CW cheap, and given that CBS pays half price on it, I think there’s no way CBS is paying more than 1 million an episode (with promotion).
harpers Island is a rip off from the book “and then there were none”(formerly “13 little N******)
yawn…
Like somebody else said, if NBC do AXE MEDIUM i think CBS should pick it up, they make the show and its got nearly 100 episodes :/ im sure if they put it behind ghost whisperer it would give the show a boost!
I hope Gary Unmarried sticks around…Jay Mohr and Paula Marshall are really good together
I’m surprised that HIMYM is kicking a$$ in the demos this season. They are probably ranked higher in the 18-34 demos where they consistently beat Two and a Half Men. Just imagine last season at this point, they were preparing for the series finale —referencing numerous times of who the mother was.
Although this season has been up and down (thanks to the 2 cast member’s pregnancies), I’m glad the show is doing so well.
IMO, Gary Unmarried is a funny show with a great cast, and funny scripts. I think it needs to stay to grow its audience…everyone I know that has seen it really liked it and tunes in…but few know about this show when I mention it….CBS needs to give this show time for viewer word-of-mouth to kick in. And CBS needs to promote the hell out of this show. Again, everyone I mention this show to…only a few even know about it much less have watched it. When they do watch it they really like it and tune in! Hello!