Well, we thought that NBC would make its entire 2009-10 schedule know on May 4, but they weren't ready. They did renew Southland, and Parks & Recreation, and later let it be known that Life was canceled, but no official announcements on the rest of their schedule. That won't happen for certain until May 19.
Part of NBC's May 4 announcement was that they were bringing back Saturday Night Live specials on Thursday night. That news was lethal for the renewal chances for both My Name Is Earl, and Kath & Kim (not that it had much chance anyway).
Robert and I will do another Oddsmakers prior to that date (if wants to chime in now, I'll add his column back), but in the meantime, I'll just update my guesses for renewal in the table I set up last week.
| Program | Renewal Chance |
| Law And Order | 95% |
| Chuck | 95% |
| MEDIUM | 95% |
| MY NAME IS EARL | 25% |
| KATH & KIM | 1% |
| KINGS | 0% |
| KNIGHT RIDER | 0% |
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This is a breakdown of NBC 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 |
| CRUSOE | NBC | 0.9 | 2.33 | 0.39 | canceled |
| KINGS | NBC | 1.2 | 2.33 | 0.52 | |
| FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS | NBC | 1.3 | 2.33 | 0.56 | |
| LIPSTICK JUNGLE | NBC | 1.5 | 2.33 | 0.65 | canceled |
| LIFE (WED) | NBC | 1.65 | 2.33 | 0.71 | canceled |
| KNIGHT RIDER | NBC | 1.8 | 2.33 | 0.77 | |
| MY OWN WORST ENEMY | NBC | 2.0 | 2.33 | 0.86 | canceled |
| KATH & KIM | NBC | 2.1 | 2.33 | 0.90 | |
| Law And Order | NBC | 2.1 | 2.33 | 0.90 | |
| Chuck | NBC | 2.4 | 2.33 | 1.03 | |
| MEDIUM | NBC | 2.4 | 2.33 | 1.03 | |
| MY NAME IS EARL | NBC | 2.4 | 2.33 | 1.03 | |
| Parks and Recreation | NBC | 2.5 | 2.33 | 1.08 | |
| Southland | NBC | 2.7 | 2.33 | 1.16 | |
| 30 Rock | NBC | 3.2 | 2.33 | 1.38 | |
| Law And Order:SVU | NBC | 3.3 | 2.33 | 1.42 | |
| E.R. | NBC | 3.4 | 2.33 | 1.46 | final season |
| HEROES | NBC | 3.6 | 2.33 | 1.55 | |
| OFFICE | NBC | 4.0 | 2.33 | 1.72 |
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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. I have adjusted the NBC adults 18-49 season to date average to remove the increase (of 370,000) it received during the Super Bowl week because that increase had nothing to do with the normal viewership of the network or any of its other shows.
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. Because of that, and the recent renewals at other networks of poor rated comedies, I'm indicating renewal for them.
Life moved to Wednesday beginning November 5. This is its Wednesday only STD 18-49 average as calculated by me. For past reference, the 4 Life episodes that aired on Fridays averaged 2.043 million adults 18-49.
Heroes is definitely back for next season.
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 feel like NBC doesn’t even realize they need to let people know about the likes of Knight Rider.
oh scrubs
@Chris
They don’t. It’s cancelled. The numbers are such that NBC doesn’t have to announce anything for people to know it’s never coming back.
Curiosity: What happens if Parks and Rec craters sometime soon? I feel like NBC should’ve held back on renewing it, Chuck-style.
Law & Order and Medium are safe
Chuck should be cancelled because its overrated yet it has low ratings
Made my odds and am sticking with them*. I’m not in on the negotiations, I don’t know the financial specifics, and it’s all going to come down to who eats the tab the best. The studios aren’t in any position to play hardball and NBC has obviously let them know that.
*Except for “Kath & Kim,” which I think I put at 10% and has since been dumped.
Chuck is overrated, but it most certainly does not deserve to get cancelled. While there are several better shows out there, it is still one of the best, and very fun, and deserves to see a third season.
Chuck is not overrated, It’s just getting started. Hopefully with a season 3, it will keep going
Bring Chuck Back for a third season. Its definately the best show on TV right now! I think their ratings were low because many people, like me, just recently discovered Chuck and there are so many who still know nothing. I watch a lot of TV and i would rather see any other show on tv go down instead of Chuck.
Also think that NBC should never have cancelled Las Vegas!!! and knight rider is a decent show. WTF! Parks and recreation should not be renewed its weird shitt.
NBC would be awesomme if they had Chuck, Knight Rider, and Las Vegas still going
PLEASE GIVE CHUCK A THIRD SEASON. ITS F*CK**G AWESOMME!!!!
Chuck is not overated, it’s just a mediocre show that a few people on here like to mention constantly. The ratings for it says a lot about its quality.
A few of you obviously think your opinions are valid however I think they’re a tad overrated too. I’m curious what do you think are the best shows currently on Net TV, not cable cause we all know Californication, Dexter and Breaking Bad kick ass, just curious to see your Net pics so I can frame your statements relevance. Top favorite of all three nets, just as reference. Should be a good chuckle, oops I said the chuck word again.
Tony, you’re free to think what you will, but to say that ratings reflect quality is ridiculous. I’m not claiming it’s the greatest show ever made like many other (admittedly overzealous) fanboys are, but I think it is still an above average dose of escapist TV that is hard to find on network TV nowadays. If you don’t like the show, that’s fine, it’s not for everybody. But to claim that its quality is suspect simply because it gets mediocre ratings is absurd.
I suppose it bears repeating that according to Robert and Bill, Chuck’s numbers, while not great, would have put it in the safely renew column, were it not for Leno stealing five hours of prime time next fall.
Therefore, saying Chuck should be canceled because it’s numbers are mediocre is simply incorrect, regardless of how one thinks of the show’s quality.
I dont understand how Earl could be in such trouble, hasnt it been pretty consistent in its time slot? I only started watching it like mabey half way through season 2 but I think its been pretty funny, if anything its been getting better. and didnt it win some emmys a while back? I’m just saying why cancel something good when you’re having trouble getting something new to catch on. kath and kim sucked. and parks is pretty bad, its like all the jokes that arent funny enough to make the office go to parks and amy poler is trying to be steve carell instead of her own character. I think Earl has a couple of good seasons left in them, but at the very least I hope they get 1 more season so they can end it properly.
Oh Tony…
Notice that lately its been the anti-Chuck folks that have become particularly lame. In this comment section the first and second mentions of Chuck were by anti-Chuck folks. Perhaps if you guys don’t want TVBTN to become festered with Chuck comments you shouldn’t talk about Chuck all the time either.
@ Corey,
no saying something is mediocre in its quality on the basis of its numbers is not absurd. It’s STUPID. Unfortunately some people here hates Chuck too much that in the height of their emotions their inner-self comes out…
For those who are criticizing Chuck:
Why bother mentioning something about it if you don’t like it?
And before commenting check to make sure your “facts” are correct.
Why is MNIE in danger?
So, has Fox said anything about picking up Earl yet?
Fox won’t pickup earl. The ratings are too low to justify the swith, imho.