Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through November 15, 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) | 0.60 |
| 90210 (P) | 0.84 |
| Smallville (F), (P) | 0.89 |
| Gossip Girl (P) | 0.95 |
| One Tree Hill (P) | 0.96 |
| Supernatural (S), (P) | 0.99 |
| Vampire Diaries (P) | 1.41 |
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The return of the appropriately aged (a year younger than yours truly) Heather Locklear gave Melrose Place a small ratings boost, but not nearly enough to give any hope to those who thought she might save the show. She only lifted the shows ratings to the level they held in early October. I thought the show was dead then, and ratings will likely to trail off from last night's levels. That's too little, too late.
Note that Smallville, Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill have yet to air a repeat, while all other CW scripted shows have. Right now that puts them temporarily on the up side of the see-saw and the others on the down side, but things should even out once every show has a similar number of repeats into their averages which will happen in the next month or so. At the moment 90210, Melrose Place, Supernatural and Vampire Diaries are a bit lower in the Index than they should be for that reason.
*I have frozen The Beautiful Life's Index at its value the week of cancellation.
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.
they are going to air all the beautiful life episodes
yeah MP is dead. They should have hired Heather originally. It’s too late now to save it, since it’s a serialized drama people won’t want to catch up with it. It would take a small miracle to get the ratings to trend up from here.
TBL – Maybe. When? Who knows. Might be summer 2010.
Yeah, it’s done. Stick a fork in it, but it was really dead on arrival. The CW normally gets horrible ratings (Not counting Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, and Smallville), but this is a new low for them. People are tired of the crappy CW remakes and shows about rich characters and their scandalous lives.
So, basically, the only show that probably won’t get renewed next season (provided CW even lives to next season) is Melrose Place?
Hopefully Life Unexpected does well and they can keep that. I miss Shiri Appleby being in my television life.
I doubt there is a plan C. The CW has been very patient with Melrose Place but its gonna get cancelled. When did Priviledged get cancelled? November? February? Thats probably gonna be around the time Melrose Place gets cancelled unless there is some miracle.
Confused why Smallville is behind GG and OTH because it’s averaging higher ratings: Smallville is #4 in overall viewers….is this where Dawn’s target demo adds weight?
CW SEASON AVERAGES
Rank……Show……..Avg
1……….. VD……….3.96
2……….. ATM……..3.24
3……….. SN……… 2.73
4…………SV……….2.49
5…………OTH……..2.47
6……….. 90210……2.26
7……….. GG……….2.19
8……….. Melrose….1.59
BTW, those numbers were up through last Friday…didn’t update for Mon/Tue ratings.
oh…u include repeats in ratings too. nevermind…my posts are more of a distraction.
Sorry.
david – reading about the CW’s ratings, and about Dawn Ostroff, I have four choices:
a – jumping off of a building
b – drinking a case of Thunderbird
c – smoking the highest grade, cocaine-laced, weed
d – reading your posts
ratings: a = 0, b = 6, c = 1, d = 9
b + d = eleventy
The worst thing is i bet the DVR Numbers for this week will be huge
Also i cant help thinking the CW are not going to give up on this show yet. I wish they would shift it from Tuesday to Mon or Weds
Heather Locklear is soo foxy
Looks like Melrose won’t last beyond the 18 episodes, wonder if Gossip Girl could move to Tuesdays if Life UneXpected outdraws it, it is more compatible with 90210 than One Tree Hill.
The only way Melrose’s ratings will go up is if the CW adds Sarah Palin as a cast member. It worked for Oprah.
The Producers originally wanted Heather Locklear to be killed in the pilot, she declined the role.
Also bad casting, Ashlee Simpson and nearly half the cast unlikeable.
Too bad, when i originally heard about the plots i thought of Veronica Mars Season 1. Melrose not nearly as well done.
Too Bad too, there tweaking it and it’s slowly getting better.
I dont think Melrose Place is THAT bad. I find it somewhat enjoyable. I will admit I had higher hopes for it. There is something missing. I like SOME of the characters. The girl who plays Ella is not the right character for her. I like the couple getting married.
The show did need Amanda early on. And too many flashbacks. I think it needed a writer from the past and a few more characters. The writers do NOT understand the past characters, Janes character is not realistic, she was never THAT manipulative and cold. People can change though.
The show is getting a major makeover with the addition of Heather Locklear, Billy Campbell, Nick Zano, and the return of Daphne Zuniga and Josie Bissett. Plus, with Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Colin Egglesfield gone, the show is going to make a dramatic shift back to the formula that made the original so successful. The creators are doing their homework, and Dawn isn’t going to give up on this show.
The writers have never bothered watching the original, they don’t even know what it was about, the original characters (sydney, jane,jo, amanda…) are totally different, that’s not what original fans want to see, that’s why they didn’t even turn in last night for Amanda. The writers messed up. Aaron Spelling has turned in his grave more than once i’m sure!! that’s a shame, he was a genius!
The fat lady may be warming up but she ain’t singin’ yet. If they showed enough faith to order more episodes and are taking the time to re-tool it, they’re not going to pull the plug before seeing if their changes have paid off. The show will at the very least play out the season. I wouldn’t be surprised to watch the upward trend continue.
I never understood why Gossip Girls, 90210 and Melrose Place get all the attention and media hype when they are the least watched / lowest rated shows. OTH is the one soapy drama on the CW that has held steady over all these years and the network rarely pays it any attention whatsoever. Every year I forget it’s even on television and have to search for it in the lineup but I always fall back in love with it each season. I’m surprised that through all the changes in storylines, casting and time slots the show’s writing remains strong and entertaining. Sometimes it’s like GG, 90210 and Melrose Place are the only shows on the CW (with the exception of the new hit series Vampire Dairies). I guess the lowest rated shows need all the attention they can get but the other strong performing shows need some love too. LOL.