Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through November 29, 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) | 0.21 |
| Brothers (F) | 0.25 |
| Dollhouse (F), (P) | 0.26 |
| Fringe | 0.60 |
| Bones (P) | 0.79 |
| Lie To Me (P) | 0.80 |
| Glee (P) | 0.91 |
| American Dad (P) | 0.96 |
| The Cleveland Show (P) | 1.14 |
| The Simpsons (P) | 1.19 |
| Family Guy (P) | 1.30 |
| House | 1.53 |
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Note that the Index values for all Fox shows will continue to be very depressed for some time because the World Series ratings have unusually boosted Fox’s overall 18-49 average (3.5 vs. ~3.0 before baseball). That will slowly subside as Fox’s average declines post-baseball. For the time being, the order of the shows is far more important than the Index values.
Some fans have suggested that with Lie To Me's modest ratings success after House, that it should be canceled instead of Fringe (or at the very least timeslot swapped with Fringe).
I doubt anything like that is being seriously considered at Fox. Lie To Me is produced by Fox, Fringe isn't. They slotted the shows where they are knowing the advantage it would give to Lie To Me, for good reason. Fox stands to make more from a successful Lie To Me than from a successful Fringe. Life isn't fair.
Although Fox would be "breaking the rules" of the Renew / Cancel Index if they brought Fringe back, they could very well decide to do so based on their expectations. I just have no idea what those expectations were. Neither do you. Neither do all those "scoopy" entertainment writers out there.
Dollhouse, Brothers and 'Til Death are all canceled, either in fact or in practice. Dollhouse fans will see all its episodes that were produced, that's the best the other two can hope for as well.
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.
Lie to me is a show you watch because it’s there, fringe is a show you follow. I have 5 lie to me episodes on my dvr with no urgency to watch them. Anyone else feel the same?
Is Bones doing OK? I’m worried for it.
@John: Bones, while below average for Fox, gets the best Thursday ratings Fox can hope for, outside of moving House there. Besides that, they are already picked up for next year. Your worries are groundless.
Fringe & Lie to Me will remain in doubt until the end of the season, when we see how Human Target does and find out if 24 wants/deserves another season. Although it could be interesting to see just which of the two Fox picks to fill in if Genius implodes.
The question makes no sense: They don’t pick one show over another unless they’ve filled all but one of their timeslots.
It’s not even as if LTM and Fringe are good substitutions for one another. At least the (wrong) T:SCC browncoats* who complained that Dollhouse’s renewal had been at T:SCC’s expense were talking about two shows that arguably were aimed at the same audience.
Fox might choose to save Fringe, they might even to do so when letting LTM go, but it’s not going to be because they’re looking at a list with two TV shows on it, working out which one to cross off.
* used in the generic form, to mean a loud, annoying, group of fans who can’t get over the fact their show wasn’t popular and insist it was only canceled because of some giant conspiracy on the part of the networks.
FringeFan- I feel the same way. I don’t even record Lie to Me on my primary (HD) DVR anymore b/c it ends up going unwatched and taking up space. It gets watched whenever I am killing some time in my office and I am usually multi-tasking when its on (like with my L&O recordings). Fringe on the other hand I always watch within 2 days. I would hate to lose Fringe over Lie to Me.
John- Bones is already renewed through next season so no need to worry yet
I’m waiting for NBC renew/cancel index.
Thank God, I LOVE Bones.
Anything can happy between now and then, though.
The only reason Lie to me is in the Green because it has the post house spot switch with Fringe and lets see what happens
FOX couldn’t can Lie and keep Fringe, that wouldn’t make sense at this point. If they renew Fringe, Lie to Me must be as well. I do understand about the House lead in Lie has, however I believe that the show did air one new episode after either a House repeat or something else and it still had a higher rating than Fringe’s average.
Not to mention the fact that Fringe squandered an even larger amount of House and Idol’s ratings last season, so Fringe fans shouldn’t be calling for a “better” at least ratings wise show to be cancelled, they should just be hoping that FOX is willing to accept Fringe’s results and that possibly the show can rebound some. Tomorrow night’s episode will be the first time since the season premiere (I think) that it won’t have full competition against it. CSI is a repeat, Grey’s isn’t on, but a 2 hour Private Practice is, and then the Office is the only normal new show up against it. So it will be interesting to see if the show can shift some of their DVR viewers back to the night it actually airs.
I’ve try to watch LTM several times, the pilot, season 2 premiere, some episodes that looked promising in the ads. In the end I never watched a full episode, I always dropped out of it after 15 minutes or so.
I hope Fringe is going to survive, but I won’t put my life on hold if it doesn’t get renewed
Bones is good as safe for the next couple of years at least.
The problems are coming from Fringe which needs a new timeslot, Lie to Me which could use another boost, and their comedy situations.
Where has it been announced ‘Til Death had been canceled? It’s been a hit and miss show on Fox for years, but a full season was ordered. Yes, it’s 95% likely not to be coming back for a 5th season.
I was never interested enough in LTM to give it a try. Conversely, I have watched all the episodes of Fringe.
But I have to say that the overall quality this year is not up to the same level that it was during the second half of last year. By no means has it become bad, but at least imo it has definitely lost a step or two.
The reasons given for Fox to pick LTM over Fringe certainly sound plausible, though we’ll see how everything shakes out in the Spring. I’m hoping that Fringe can regain what I believe that it has lost and so either increase it’s chances for renewal, or at least go out on a high note if this is it’s last year.
fox gave fringe the post-house and post-American Idol timeslot last year…they invested a lot in it…I really hope they don’t cancel it. Didn’t it premiere with a 2.9 this year? That’s pretty decent, granted it was a week before ABC and CBS had their respective debuts.
Why would they choose Fringe? Nobody’s watching it. That show has been a ratings disappointment since it showed up. No one cares who the producer of a show is if it’s a crappy show.
Lie to Me is getting better ratings and hasn’t miserably missed expectations. Were the expectations lower — sure? But Fringe is a stinker no matter how you slice it.
Brad, there rarely is an “announcement” that’s why I write “in fact or in practice”.
I really can’t see any reason to keep FRINGE around. It failed. And I don’t want to hear none of that “the timeslot is bad” talk. Last season is was given the absolute best slot on the air so this year was time to see if it could make it on its own. It couldn’t.
You can only keep training wheels on for so long. Get rid of it.
I find Lie to Me to be quite compelling. Its a nice twist on procedurals, Tim Roth and the rest of the cast are very good and it has the potential to run for quite a few seasons without crumpling under the weight of its ‘mythology.’
I haven’t watched Fringe since early season one — I thought it was an over-hyped, derivative mess, which not only didn’t hold my interest, but literally made me cjhange the channel. It was completely bouyed by its AI lead in and it isn’t a stong enough show to survive on Thursdays. JJ Abrams other little show — Lost — couldn’t make it on Thursday’s either.
Mel,
I would very much agree that Fringe started out as quite a mess, but I kept turning it on as background noise because I literally had nothing else on Tuesdays. I was still watching it sometime in late November/early December when I realized that it had markedly improved. It’s quality jumped considerably and stayed high from that point on (at least through the end of S1). That trend isn’t unusual imo. There are many long-lived shows in which all or part of the 1st Season was noticeably weaker than the succeeding Seasons. Fringe took around 6-8 Episodes to find it’s footing.
I watch both Lie to Me and Fringe and Lie to Me is a far more entertaining show while Fringe is a more interesting show. I do also think Lie to Me would be a much better fit after Bones I don’t see how anyone can argue Fringe is a good fit after House, the shows are so massively different that I doubt it would do better then Lie to Me, in fact I’d bet it do worse.