Short term (4 week) ratings trends indicate the renewal prospects for Castle, The Good Wife, Heroes, Parks & Recreation and Law & Order have improved.
Since I am keeping individual show episode ratings this season (unlike in past years when I just relied on Nielsen averages), I'd been meaning to look at short term ratings trends explicitly at some point (instead of just eyeballing them). I meant to start including them in the regular posts this week, but the Nielsen power outage delay made that impractical. However, in preparation for next weeks posts, I set up the spreadsheet and did the calculations for this week, so I figured I would post them (not color coded).
Remember that on a season average basis, an Index of below 0.92 has in the past indicated a scripted show is in danger of cancellation. On a short term Index basis, I haven't checked the history. And to be honest, there's likely more in these numbers than I've drawn out from my cursory scan, but shows with 4 week Indexes over their season Indexes would seem to have improving chances. Whether that turns out to be the case, we shall see.
ABC
| Program | Renew/ Cancel Index | 4 Week Renew/ Cancel Index |
| Ugly Betty (S), (F), (P) | 0.39 | 0.42 |
| Hank | 0.52 | 0.50 |
| Eastwick | 0.63 | 0.58 |
| the forgotten | 0.66 | 0.69 |
| The Middle | 0.69 | 0.72 |
| Castle (P) | 0.75 | 0.86 |
| FlashForward (P) | 1.00 | 0.98 |
| Brothers & Sisters (S), (P) | 1.01 | 1.13 |
| Cougar Town (P) | 1.10 | 1.08 |
| Modern Family | 1.18 | 1.26 |
| Private Practice (P) | 1.23 | 1.30 |
| V | 1.45 | 1.60 |
| Desperate Housewives (P) | 1.53 | 1.70 |
| Grey's Anatomy (P) | 1.79 | 1.88 |
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CBS
| Program | Renew/ Cancel Index | 4 Week Renew/ Cancel Index |
| Numb3rs (F), (P) | 0.54 | 0.65 |
| Three Rivers (P) | 0.55 | 0.64 |
| Cold Case (P) | 0.60 | 0.68 |
| New Adventures of Old Christine (S) | 0.62 | 0.71 |
| MEDIUM (F), (P) | 0.62 | 0.73 |
| Ghost Whisperer (F), (S) | 0.63 | 0.74 |
| Gary Unmarried | 0.67 | 0.76 |
| The Good Wife (P) | 0.86 | 0.94 |
| Accidentally On Purpose (P) | 0.92 | 1.06 |
| CSI:NY (P) | 0.98 | 1.09 |
| How I Met Your Mother (S) | 1.06 | 1.21 |
| The Mentalist | 1.09 | 1.26 |
| CSI (P) | 1.11 | 1.22 |
| Criminal Minds (P) | 1.12 | 1.22 |
| NCIS: Los Angeles (P) | 1.13 | 1.23 |
| CSI: Miami (P) | 1.21 | 1.35 |
| NCIS (P) | 1.37 | 1.55 |
| Two and a Half Men | 1.40 | 1.60 |
| Big Bang Theory | 1.49 | 1.72 |
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CW
| Program | Renew/ Cancel Index | 4 Week Renew/ Cancel Index |
| The Beautiful Life: TBL (P) | 0.49* | |
| Melrose Place (P) | 0.60 | 0.62 |
| 90210 (P) | 0.84 | 0.93 |
| Smallville (F), (P) | 0.89 | 1.10 |
| Gossip Girl (P) | 0.95 | 1.10 |
| One Tree Hill (P) | 0.96 | 1.12 |
| Supernatural (S), (P) | 0.99 | 1.12 |
| Vampire Diaries (P) | 1.41 | 1.60 |
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NBC
| Program | Renew/ Cancel Index | 4 Week Renew/ Cancel Index |
| Law & Order (F), (P) | 0.54 | 0.63 |
| Trauma (P) | 0.69 | 0.75 |
| Mercy (P) | 0.71 | 0.71 |
| Parks & Recreation (P) | 0.75 | 0.85 |
| Community | 0.83 | 0.85 |
| Heroes (P) | 0.92 | 0.99 |
| Law & Order: SVU (P) | 0.97 | 1.09 |
| 30 Rock (P) | 1.14 | 1.25 |
| The Office (P) | 1.56 | 1.71 |
The middle column Renew / Cancel Index numbers are calculated the same as they always have been. A show's season average adults 18-49 rating divided by its networks season average adults 18-49 rating. The 4 week Indexes divide a show's 4 week running 18-49 ratings average by the networks running 4 week ratings average. The number of repeats during a short period can cause misleading results. Not sure if I can do something simple to show that or not.
Note that the Fox numbers for the 4 week average would have been entirely useless because few regular shows aired more than once or twice, and the averages were heavily skewed by baseball, so I didn't include them at all. Next week I may figure out something special for Fox for the next few weeks.
