Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (includes 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 |
| Numb3rs (F), (P) | 0.50 |
| Three Rivers (P) | 0.54 |
| Medium (F), (P) | 0.58 |
| New Adventures of Old Christine (S) | 0.60 |
| Ghost Whisperer (F), (S) | 0.60 |
| Cold Case (P) | 0.61 |
| Gary Unmarried | 0.66 |
| The Good Wife (P) | 0.88 |
| Accidentally On Purpose (P) | 0.90 |
| CSI:NY (P) | 0.99 |
| How I Met Your Mother (S) | 1.04 |
| The Mentalist | 1.04 |
| CSI (P) | 1.13 |
| Criminal Minds (P) | 1.15 |
| NCIS: Los Angeles (P) | 1.15 |
| CSI: Miami (P) | 1.20 |
| NCIS (P) | 1.35 |
| Two and a Half Men | 1.36 |
| Big Bang Theory | 1.45 |
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There's not much more to say about Three Rivers. It is certain to be canceled by the end of this season, the only remotely interesting thing left is when CBS pulls it from the schedule.
Cold Case was pre-empted by a football overrun this week, but because CBS' average ticked up sharply (thanks again to football!) its Index sank. "Oh woe is CC, it can't catch a break" wail the fans!
The Good Wife ratings continue to slip. It's now at least in some danger of being canceled at the end of the season, particularly if it continues to slide.
New Adventures of Old Christine and Gary Unmarried are stably pitiful, but what’s new? If CBS is determined to weather their terrible ratings to establish another night of comedy they may be fine for yet another season.
Numb3rs ratings are again close enough to those of Medium and Ghost Whisperer to put its future in less doubt. Last season Numb3rs was renewed with a gap between its Index and that of Ghost Whisperer of 0.10. At that gap or less, I figure the show is safe, above that gap there's a risk it gets canceled.
This is a breakdown of CBS 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.
I think Cold Case will end this season but will air 22-23 episodes in its entirety, Three Rivers I think has a week or two left before CBS decides its fate, it’s the lowest rated drama and with midseason replacements plus Flashpoint, I don’t see CBS being patient as it’s unlikely at this point to grow its audience.
The comedies either should be axed or moved to Sundays because the ratings are hurting Wednesdays. Moving The Amazing Race to Wednesdays or have a drama or a reality at 8pm would boost the already strong CM and CSI: NY.
does NCIS only have 9 episodes this season?
They should have the hospital be sucked into a vortex into Pittsburgh’s legendary secret 4th River for the final episode. Whooooooooosh! Sort of the way the LOST Island vanishes.
numbers safe and the good wife not…
hmmmm
Numbers Friday and The Good Wife Tuesday. Not so hmmmm.
Though I think it is an open question whether either returns next year, and suspect we’ll continue to see their names pop up in these index titles.
Numbers back to green yes!!!!!!! come on Goodwife get back to green!
I hope djm is joking. NCIS has a full 22-ep season this year, and pretty much every season for the immediate future.
Cold Case is done after this year’s full season run.
Good Wife will also be done after this year.
‘Three Rivers’ did bounce back this week in retention of households (up from 77% to 78%), A18-49s (53% to 59%) and viewers (70% to 72%) out of ‘The Amazing Race’, and I think that will earn this well-written show respite for further chances to establish itself during the November Sweep.
Even though it has yet to air precisely within the 9-10 pm timezone (on the east coast at least), ‘Three Rivers’ demo as a percentage of ‘Desperate Housewives’ demo (its drama competition in the hour) has been showing growth, going from 38% for episode 1 to 37% for episode 2 and 42% for episode 3. Given that CBS pitched ‘Three Rivers’ as a drama alternative to ‘Desperate Housewives’, this slow build against its major competitor is notable.
Dumont,no offense, but did you ever notice than whenever you praise a show, it goes off the air? Maybe you should keep quiet if you want these shows to stay on the air.
TBBT is produced by WB just like Two and a half Men is though, isn’t it? I think there was some talk about it getting a two year renewal, because of some other Chuck Lorre/TAAHM/WB legalities, so it seems odd that suddenly it had a (P) indicating a CBS Paramount TV production.
idizzle, I admit to 100% reliance on IMDB for producer data and they have CBS and WB as the producers of TBBT.
Michael says:
October 20, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Dumont,no offense, but did you ever notice than whenever you praise a show, it goes off the air? Maybe you should keep quiet if you want these shows to stay on the air.
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That is more myth than fact. Amongst my favourite shows are long-runners such as ‘Lost’, ‘Supernatural’, ‘How I Met Your Mother’, ’30 Rock’, ‘My Thursday Night Movie’ and even ‘Chuck’.
For the few fence-sitting shows that I watch (‘Castle’, ‘Three Rivers’ and ‘Dollhouse’ in particular), I think my arguments in some way mirror the difficult hand-wringing decision-making going on at the network level.
For ‘Three Rivers’, its performance vis-a-vis ‘Desperate Housewives’ is the trend to keep a careful eye upon, and so far after 3 airings, it’s been positive.
Well, as weird as that is to me, it would explain how CBS stopped Cuoco from appearing on Grey’s Anatomy while apparently A-OK with Wanda Sykes doing a show for FOX and Holland Taylor being on Monk repeatedly. Sooo – I guess I am buying that imdb info.
TBBT is definitely a Warner Bros production like TAHM — here’s a B&C story on the renewals from last March:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/190270-CBS_Warner_Bros_Renew_Two_And_A_Half_Men_The_Big_Bang_Theory_.php
The Futon Critic is usually easier to use to find studio information. IMDb seems to include the network for most shows, at least on CBS.
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch.aspx?id=big_bang_theory
OK, the (P) after TBBT is no more!
Not that they wouldn’t be regardless based on the numbers anyway, but both TAHM and TBBT are not only likely to be renewed through the 2010-2011 season, the already are!
But I understand those sorts of designations wind up being color coding/notational nightmares.
Well one thing to consider is that CBS does get to see how the show does at 9pm (they do get all that data from the West Coast) both in viewers and demo. And while shows do perform in different levels in various regions, it does give CBS an ability to see how the show does without interruptions week to week.
if CBS truly wanted to shore up its Wednesday night comedy block, they could try BigBangTheory repeats instead of Old Christine and/or Gary Unmarried repeats as a test run for a fall 2010 shift to lead off Wednesday nights.
CBS would have 2 strong shows in 2aaHM and BBT with solid HIMYM anchoring 3 comedy hours.
or, in a ‘don’t fix what’s not broken way’, is BigBangTheory simply set-up to take over 2 and a Half Men once it becomes too expensive/ends its run?
also looking down to Fall 2010, where does a Criminal Minds spin-off land, Sunday or Tuesday Nights? i doubt moving an established show (like CSI NY) will happen again as that kinda damaged a previously solid Without a Trace or maybe didn’t do as well as hoped like the Mentalist this year ?
It’s so weird that CSI is their #7 show, and behind 3 different spinoffs that it helped originate.