Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through October 11, 2009):
- Likely To Be Canceled By May, 2010
- Some Danger Of Being Canceled By May, 2010
- Likely to Be Renewed For The 2010-11 Season
| Program | Renew/ Cancel Index |
| Til Death (S), (F) | 0.28 |
| Brothers (F) | 0.31 |
| Dollhouse (F), (P) | 0.33 |
| Fringe | 0.77 |
| Bones (P) | 0.97 |
| Lie To Me (P) | 1.03 |
| Glee (P) | 1.11 |
| American Dad (P) | 1.23 |
| The Simpsons (P) | 1.43 |
| The Cleveland Show (P) | 1.52 |
| Family Guy (P) | 1.71 |
| House | 2.06 |
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The announcement yesterday by Fox that they will produce and air all 13 episodes of Dollhouse that were ordered for this season sounds to me like the death knell for the show. As Robert cogently advises, don't buy the % DVR increase hype.
I think it's probable that yesterday's announcement will be followed in the next week or so by an announcement that Fox is removing Dollhouse from its Friday schedule for at least the November sweeps period, perhaps without an indication on when it will return. Fans will see the last 10 episodes sometime, but who knows when.
It’s highly unlikely that ‘Til Death or Brothers survives until next season as well. ‘Til Death’s producers (Sony) will have the episodes they need for syndication, and presumably won’t have an incentive to give the series away to Fox for nearly free again, and Brothers ratings are just plain awful. Still, because those are the only two open half hour slots till football is over, Fox is in a tricky situation if they want to pull just one of them early unless they double up on the other, which wouldn’t seem to increase the ratings either.
Even though I have Fringe in orange, I think it is still quite likely, but not certain, to be renewed.
This is a breakdown of Fox scripted shows and their renewal and cancellation prospects. Here are links to the other networks:
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Notes:
The Renew/Cancel Index is a show's Season To Date adults 18-49 rating divided by its network's Season to Date average 18-49 rating. If a show's season to date 18-49 ratings average equalled its network's 18-49 average, the show would have an Index of 1.00. Without special factors, scripted shows that were more than 10% below their network's average are typically canceled by the end of the broadcast primetime season.
Factors that could cause a show to be renewed with well below average index:
- (F) -Fridays: Shows airing on Fridays have been renewed with significantly lower than average Indexes.
- (S) - Syndication: Shows nearing syndication (66-88 episodes), often have economic factors that trump ratings leading to renewal.
- (T) - Third Party: Shows that have a portion of their cost underwritten by a 3rd party can be renewed with substantially lower ratings.
- (P) - Produced by the network's production company - For shows on the bubble, being produced by the network's corporate production company can be a survival advantage. For real losers, it's unlikely to help.
While I initially tried to designate shows with "plum" timeslots, I think it's hard to make that call at this point in the season. It's likely still a factor, but will have to be an "after the fact" call.
What's the History of the Index and How Did It Do In the Past? Check out the results from the 2007-8 season and the 2008-9 season.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All ratings used are Live+Same Day viewing.
I really hope Fringe gets renewed. It’s one of my top 5 favorite shows running right now. Plus, the last few episodes have been excellent.
I know this is a renew/cancel post, but please stop talking about this damn show already. I watch it every week on my own schedule, not on Fridays, and I find the show interesting and entertaining, but I am tired of hearing/seeing posts about this show already. Too much talk!
Wow, surprise surprise. Dollhouse was bad last year, and it’s still bad this year. Once again FOX messed up and kept the wrong show. Brothers and Til Death? Yea, THAT worked…..
FOX is just clueless.
Anyone with a BlackBerry who loves TV by the Numbers, join the TVBTN BBM group…lets get a good mobile forum going! Pin me (30B6A0A6) for the invite.
I get the theory behind pulling Dollhouse for sweeps but I’m stuck on one flaw to that, what does Fox have in the wings that’s going to do that much better? Repeats of House? Alternatively I suppose they could just switch the Friday and Saturday blocks – move Brothers, ‘Till Death and Dollhouse to Saturday and Cops and America’s Most Wanted to Friday that would probably produce better results and it would be interesting to see whether Dollhouse held up at a 1 on Saturday…
Elsewhere I still think Fringe plays out the rest of the season Thursday at 9 and that it should stay there next season. If the powers that be at Fox are willing to prop the show up financially (and from all reports they are) they may as well feed it to the wolves on Thursday rather than something they’d have to cancel that could perform better elsewhere.
Lie To Me is moving to Friday’s mid season and then it’ll probably be axed… unless its cheap and Fox are still in love with it or still holding the ‘stability on Friday’ line. It should be taking off out of House but for whatever reason it isn’t.
Dan what show should they have kept last year?
@Dan: I didn’t watch Dollhouse last season, but I’ve started to watch it this season. I’m happy FOX renewed it and gave it a chance. That’s a much better situation than yanking it after 5-8 episodes a la NBC. TSCC got two seasons too. I’m glad FOX willing to take risks and give scifi a chance. I think it’s a shame when the networks don’t give shows a chance.
OK did anyone SERIOUSLY expect Dollhouse to get any more than these 13 episodes? The fact that they will air them is a plea to whedon fans not to terminate them with hate mail.
@Alex: Dan is probably a Terminator partisan. Which was an outside production barely getting better ratings at a multiple of DH’s cost. Frankly, neither should have been renewed – but TSCC definitely wasn’t the one to keep.
It is likely that Fox will air Glee & House repeats on Fridays. Human Target/Past Life too once those come online. Lie To Me costs too damn much (and was only getting, what, a 2.0 before the House lead-in?) to keep on Fridays, especially with how ratings are doing there across the dial.
I still think Fringe depends on 24/Human Target. If 24 doesn’t come back, and HT flops, Fringe is the action-est show around. If one or both return next year, the conversation gets awkward for Fringe.
I don’t think people really need to worry about Fringe too much. It has improved Fox Thursday from year to year, and I think Fox is happy with that. Not to mention I’m sure Fox wants to keep a good relationship with JJ Abrams.
Dollhouse will burn off the rest of it’s episodes but when is anyone’s guess. Do they wait till winter and burn them off during rerun season? Do they keep it on Fridays after sweeps? Do they pull an ABC move and wait till summer to burn them off? That is really the only question left about the fate of DH in my opinion.
I’m amazed the Till Death was even renewed after last year, so who knows what Fox is going to do with that, and Brothers could fall into that same odd circle as well.
I think it’s probable that heads might explode if Dollhouse gets a hail mary back 9 or a 3rd 13 ep season. It sounds to me like the S2 airing announcement has thrown some for a loop!
Does FOX have an option on “Smarter”?
Presumably, they wouldn’t bring back “Lyrics”, since Wayne Brady is doing “Let’s Make A Deal” on CBS daytime – but there is a precedent for a person working for two networks at once (good trivia question)
For a moment there I actually forgot about Terminator… it was lovely.
Tom as far as Lie To Me goes, Fox were very high on the show and it did and I imagine still does test through the roof. I think Fox will try and keep hold of it if they can and if that means a tester on Friday mid season then I suspect that’s what they’ll do.
As far as Fringe-24-Human Target goes I’ll say this – the chances of at least one of Human Target or 24 not picking up another season seems tiny to me and to be honest I’d be surprised if both of them weren’t back next year. Despite that I still think Fringe returns, although God knows how Fox would then fit everything plus new shows onto the schedule.
theoacme, I’m sure Wayne Brady’s contract with CBS wouldn’t allow him to do another game show on a different network. But then again things are tricky when it comes to Primetime vs Daytime. But I still don’t see that happening either way.
what does it say about americans that most of the shows not in danger are cartoons?
that they are really funny cartoons!
@Tom
Ya think???
~Lanie~
Ok, clear something up for me.
Fringe and Castle are my favs. So I notice that both are .77 on the renew/cancel scale. Why is Castle marked red while Fringe is only in the orange? It is because they are different networks?
Yes different Networks, and different factors involved.
Ok, so why is Fringe not in endanger and your note even says likely to be renewed? What’s special about it?