Three shows ABC shows are legitimately on the bubble: Samantha Who?, Castle and Surviving Suburbia.
Samantha Who? is no longer on ABCs schedule. It did fine airing behind Dancing with the Stars, but on its own it did terribly. Still, it is in its second year, and was brought back under a similar situation last season. Castle started reasonably strong, but has weakened substantially, and last night managed only a 2.1 in the all important 18-49 demo. That's cancel territory. Surviving Suburbia has the plum post-Dancing slot and slipped last night to a 2.4 18-49 demo rating, that's marginal for renewal. If I had to make the call today, and ABC's upfront meeting isn't until May 19, I'd give the thumbs up to Samantha and Suburbia and down to Castle.
These shows aren't even close to the bubble: In the Motherhood, Better Off Ted, The Unusuals and Cupid, they are all going to be cancelled.
And could Scrubs actually be coming back for another season? After According to Jim anything is possible, but I doubt it.
On April 23, ABC announced the official pick-ups of the following shows for the 2009-10 season: America's Funniest Home Videos, The Bachelor, Brothers & Sisters, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Private Practice, Supernanny, Ugly Betty, Wife Swap. Not a surprise in the bunch.
This is a breakdown of ABC 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 Rating (LIVE+SD) | Network Avg. STD 18-49 rating | Renew/ Cancel index | Status |
| IN THE MOTHERHOOD | ABC | 1.6 | 2.7 | 0.59 | |
| ACCORDING TO JIM-TU 9:30P | ABC | 1.7 | 2.7 | 0.63 | final season |
| ELI STONE | ABC | 1.7 | 2.7 | 0.63 | canceled |
| BETTER OFF TED | ABC | 1.8 | 2.7 | 0.67 | |
| PUSHING DAISIES | ABC | 1.8 | 2.7 | 0.67 | canceled |
| THE UNUSUALS | ABC | 1.8 | 2.7 | 0.67 | |
| CUPID | ABC | 1.9 | 2.7 | 0.70 | |
| DIRTY SEXY MONEY | ABC | 1.9 | 2.7 | 0.70 | canceled |
| SCRUBS-TU 9PM | ABC | 1.9 | 2.7 | 0.70 | final season? |
| BOSTON LEGAL | ABC | 2.2 | 2.7 | 0.81 | final season |
| LIFE ON MARS | ABC | 2.2 | 2.7 | 0.81 | canceled |
| UGLY BETTY | ABC | 2.3 | 2.7 | 0.85 | |
| SAMANTHA WHO? | ABC | 2.4 | 2.7 | 0.89 | |
| CASTLE | ABC | 2.5 | 2.7 | 0.93 | |
| SURVIVING SUBURBIA | ABC | 2.7 | 2.7 | 1.00 | |
| Private Practice | ABC | 2.9 | 2.7 | 1.07 | |
| BROTHERS & Sisters | ABC | 3.4 | 2.7 | 1.26 | |
| LOST | ABC | 4.2 | 2.7 | 1.56 | |
| GREY'S ANATOMY | ABC | 4.6 | 2.7 | 1.70 | |
| Desperate Housewives | ABC | 5.3 | 2.7 | 1.96 |
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Notes:
To remove clutter from the table, I have included only the day/timeslot with the most airings for According to Jim and Scrubs.
According to Jim: After 8 seasons, and recent horrible ratings, but presumably great sydication profits, ABC's According to Jim looks like its prime-time run is coming to an end this season as one of the stars says the stage has been bulldozed. That seems pretty final to me.
Scrubs: Eight seasons is the end for Scrubs as well. Update: Or perhaps not. I am doubting that retraction, I believe he spoke the truth initially and then got his hand slapped and tried to backtrack. I'm keeping it marked as final 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.
