With 8 episodes down and 6 5 to go for Dollhouse, there's certainly a chance for a late game ratings miracle, but I just can't think of any logical reason to expect one any longer. It's far more likely that the show just muddles along at about its current 18-49 demo ratings, and they're just not going to save the show.
Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles' series finale is April 10.
4/8 Update: Lots of comments about how April 10 is the TSCC season finale. People who live a reality based life understand it's also the series finale.
This is a breakdown of Fox 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 |
| TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES (FRI) | FOX | 1,642 | 3,530 | 0.47 | |
| DO NOT DISTURB | FOX | 2,097 | 3,530 | 0.59 | canceled |
| DOLLHOUSE | FOX | 2,116 | 3,530 | 0.60 | |
| TIL DEATH | FOX | 2,364 | 3,530 | 0.67 | renewed |
| PRISON BREAK | FOX | 2,988 | 3,530 | 0.85 | canceled |
| American Dad | FOX | 3,628 | 3,530 | 1.03 | |
| KING OF THE HILL | FOX | 3,719 | 3,530 | 1.05 | final season |
| Bones | FOX | 3,988 | 3,530 | 1.13 | |
| Simpsons | FOX | 4,154 | 3,530 | 1.18 | renewed |
| FRINGE | FOX | 4,586 | 3,530 | 1.30 | |
| Family Guy | FOX | 4,613 | 3,530 | 1.31 | |
| 24 | FOX | 5,008 | 3,530 | 1.42 | coming back |
| Lie To Me | FOX | 5,134 | 3,530 | 1.45 | |
| HOUSE | FOX | 6,129 | 3,530 | 1.74 |
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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).
Notes:
Prison Break is in its final season.
'Til Death has done terribly, and has been off Fox’s schedule since October, Sony Pictures has reportedly made Fox such a sweet 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.
Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles: The numbers above are for only its Friday airings that began on February 13, 2009. FYI, It's 13 episode 18-49 average on Monday this season was 2.726 million.
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.
Correction: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles’ season finale is April 10.
“Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles’ series finale is April 10.”
You mean Season finale… Writers of the show have as recently as April 5th, denied claims that the series is canceled/ending.
They would have also announced it earlier too, because they wouldn’t want cancellation news being so close to release of T4.
The show hasn’t been cancelled yet, but I think Bill wrote “series finale” because Terminator is obviously not coming back. I agree with him, FOX will say season finale while promoting the series, however because of the movie, it won’t be announced until the upfronts. So for all the realistic people out there, The series finale airs April 10. The series finales of Prison Break and Dollhouse will air May 15.
Dollhouse has 6 episodes left? I thought it had 5 left.
Somehow Bill has a total of 14 episodes when there are only 13, but there are only five left. One this Friday, and after a week off on 4/17, four more that will run on consecutive Fridays starting 4/24.
Bad counting!
Jonathan, there will likely be no announcement of TSCC’s cancellation. May 18 will come, Fox will announce its Fall schedule, TSCC won’t be on it, and the movie will open 3 days later and TSCC will be forgotten.
I hope that dollhouse comes back next year. It it probably won’t , I like the show I don’t know why the ratings are so bad.
It looks like DOLLHOUSE may get renewed. I’m a believer in the index, but I also believe that Fridays live by their own rules. We don’t know what the bar is for Friday on FOX, just as we don’t know the bar for CBS.
One of the prospects for Sarah Connor Chronicles is that it might get picked up by Sci Fi. Would be a good combo to go with Caprica next year.
ed, what makes you think T:SCC will get picked up? Its way to expensive and the ratings are pretty bad, if not awful.
TSCC is totally doomed.
Hopefully so is Josh Friedman’s TV career.
No matter what they do Friday – whether it’s the leaked script or something else – there’s no way they can recover from the disaster that is this season. They really have “burned down the frakkin’ barn” as Friedman put it.
Jonathan says: “They would have also announced it earlier too, because they wouldn’t want cancellation news being so close to release of T4.”
Dan says: “FOX will say season finale while promoting the series, however because of the movie, it won’t be announced until the upfronts.”
Jonathan and Dan, go find a network’s publicly announced cancellation notice for any show and link to it. See you back here, when it actually happens.
Geez.
Let me have a go at baseless B.S.:
“Fox has canceled Dollhouse, but they won’t announce it until after Wolverine is released so that it doesn’t hurt that movie. They are concerned that Dollhouse fans will boycott the movie.”
Easy to do. So pointless. So stupid.
harold: why would wolverine movie affect dollhouse??is fox the movies studio?dool, house and terminator are good but they don’t have enough robots or other movie tie -ins. i like them!altho the actrees playing sarah is skinny!!it isn’t over til it’s over !!
Harold, ABC officially announced Life on Mars’ cancellation a few weeks before the finale
dollhouse is terrible, i have no feeling towards the characters and thats what keeps me interested in the shows i watch
Johnathan,
You’re my favorite person that comments here. I wish I could live in your world where down is up, black is white, and TSCC has even a little bit of a chance at renewal.
Alas, I live in the real world, where up is up, black is black, and TSCC is going to be canceled. It’s a slam-dunk, home run, touchdown, whatever sports cliche you want. TSCC is gone. From Fox at least. I’m not to be held responsible for my comments if some network like SyFy (God I hate typing that) is stupid enough to pick it up.
I’m guessing the reason behind Fringe being higher up than Bones is because Fringe has only aired 1 repeat all season, while Bones has had numerous repeats, correct?
I mean, I know Bones is a more popular show than Fringe (I myself am all for Fringe!) so that’s why I ask.
Jared, that’s certainly a possible contributing factor, and while I don’t have the new episode averages at hand to back me up, I’m pretty sure that Fringe’s new episodes have done much better on average in the 18-49 demo than Bones’.
Love TSCC. Love the whole mythology that the series has added to the Terminator series. But all my love can’t hide the obvious. TSCC is killing off core characters left and right. They obviously started writing the second half of the second reason as a series wrap. As much as I hate to see it go, I think it works well (even if it makes it a bit more bitter sweet). TSCC is beginning to feel like an extended mini-series and it plays very well. After all, Sarah couldn’t dodge metal for six or seven seasons without it becoming very tired.
Fan of the show. Fan of the network and producers (despite whatever ulterior motives they have with the movie tie in) for seemingly wrapping it up tight.