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 |
| The Beautiful Life: TBL (P) | 0.49* |
| Melrose Place (P) | 0.83 |
| Smallville (F), (P) | 0.93 |
| 90210 (P) | 1.03 |
| Gossip Girl (P) | 1.10 |
| One Tree Hill (P) | 1.10 |
| Supernatural (S), (P) | 1.20 |
| Vampire Diaries (P) | 1.67 |
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This is going to be a tough season for Melrose Place fans. Its ratings look almost good enough to hope for renewal for the 2010-11 season. Because of that, fans are likely to be conned by "entertainment" writers (you know who they are) into a "There's hope for Melrose Place!" frenzy. Don't fall for it.
Remember Privileged from last season, and it's associated fan hope hoo-ha in May? It was canceled with an Index of 0.89**. Keep that in mind as you read the TV writers that are baiting the desperate fans.
*I have frozen The Beautiful Life's Index at its value the week of cancellation.
**Although the CW's Sunday ratings last season were so dreadful that it boosted the Index of all the CW shows to unrepresentative levels, my guess is that removing Sunday from the mix would likely have dropped Privileged's index to about 0.8.
This is a breakdown of CW 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 that'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.
The most likely irrelevant, but interesting to some W18-34 index:
America’s Next Top Model – R 0.39
Smallville 0.43
Melrose Place – R 0.48
The Beautiful Life 0.51
Supernatural 0.82
Melrose Place 0.86
One Tree Hill 1.22
90210 1.31
America’s Next Top Model 1.42
Vampire Diaries 1.50
Gossip Girl 1.55
So the show got an upgrade from “Likely To Be Canceled By May, 2010″ to “Some Danger Of Being Canceled By May, 2010″ and you guys are warning us not to get our hopes up and not to buy into the hype? Hypocritical, this seems.
Julia, your index is impure
Not that it likely changes the relative positions any, you should factor out Supernatural and Smallville (and probably the encores).
My bet is the CW is judging performance of the shows targeted at W18-34 only vs. the performance of other shows targeted at the same group.
But then that requires work. Trying to figure out how to factor The Beautiful Life, especially. Without The Beautiful Life it looks like this:
Melrose Place 0.66
One Tree Hill 0.93
90210 1.00
America’s Next Top Model 1.09
Vampire Diaires 1.14
Gossip Girl 1.19
I think all of this MELROSE PLACE is dead hype is moot until we see what the numbers are from HEather Locklear’s return. If SHE can’t save the show, then it’s probably over for PLACE.
Melrose gets better and better each week in terms of ‘quality’ so I hope it sticks around. I agree though; this means crap until Locklear returns.
Do people honestly think that Locklear is going to have any sort of effect on the ratings? Honestly?
It’s possible Locklear will have a small impact on ratings, I wouldn’t expect it but their might at least be the curious factor initially. Not from me personally, but let’s say I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened. Whatever happens, nobody including the CW is going to give up on the show until after her eps start airing.
Julia, for me that’s a more interesting index. If your math is right, MP looks especially doomed, no matter how much Dawn Loves it.
CSM, I don’t think anyone has suggested that they would. In fact, last week Bill suggested that it will get more episodes, like Privileged did last year.
MP will last to the end of the year. It won’t (can’t) get axed early. CW has nothing ready to air.
Depending on how many filler shows they throw under the AI bus, the additional MP scripts CW ordered could already be enough to get it to the end of the year. So any press releases about additional episodes (vs. scripts) should be looked at closely.
That said, with that kind of W18-34 index, I just can’t see MP sticking around, even with Ostroff staying.
If only they would have given a role to Johnny “Drama” Chase when he auditioned for it in Entourage, maybe they’d have a hit on their hands…
Ha, Eric, it would have been fun if they had given him a guest spot for a couple of episodes and billed him as Johnny Chase.
Locklear will give the show a similar bump that the former 90210 cast made last year.
The problem with her being cast, though, is it wasn’t from the beginning, like in 90210′s case. That generated initial interest in the show; whereas this will probably see a SLIGHT interest.
I HIGHLY doubt anybody outside of Dawn’s brain thinks this will increase the show’s ratings exponentially.
Stunt casting, whether it’s Heather Locklear or not, will not help Melrose Place because the show simply isn’t that good. The program has some interesting elements and 2 or 3 good actors but, overall, the final product isn’t very entertaining at all.
Should I be scared seeing Smallville that low?
I agree with Bruce. ‘Melrose’ is getting better each week. And it’s certainly better written than the early episodes of the original FOX series (not to mention the ridiculous latter years). It took the original series well over 20 episodes to find its magic and get into the full swing and Heather Locklear played a critical part in that. So if they continue to improve the show and find a way to use Locklear well, they might increase their audience. I do wish they aired new episodes on Wednesdays and repeats on Tuesdays, though.
W 18-34 averages:
GG 2.84, Vampire 2.7 2.73, Model 2.52, 90210 2/5 2.28, Hill 2.2 2.23, Place 1.6 1.79, Supernatural 1.63
Oops.
W 18-34 averages:
Through first 5 episodes: GG 2.84, Vampire 2.72, Model 2.52, 90210 2.32, Hill 2.22, Place 1.75, Supernatural 1.56