Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (includes results through December 13, 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 |
| Ugly Betty (S), (F), (P) | 0.41 |
| Better Off Ted | 0.50 |
| Hank | 0.54* |
| Eastwick | 0.60 |
| the forgotten | 0.62 |
| The Middle |  0.71 |
| Scrubs (P) | 0.72 |
| Castle (P) | 0.77 |
| FlashForward (P) |  0.92 |
| Cougar Town (P) | 1.01 |
| Brothers & Sisters (S), (P) | 1.06 |
| Private Practice (P) | 1.14 |
| Modern Family | 1.15 |
| V | 1.27 |
| Desperate Housewives (P) | 1.58 |
| Grey's Anatomy (P) | 1.70 |
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Anyone who's been a reader of the site since last season knows that I had long predicted Better Off Ted would be canceled at the end of the 2008-9 season, but ABC brought it back even though it had dreadful ratings. ABC aired new episodes of Ted in the summer, and it received worse ratings (even considering the season). It premiered last week to just a 1.5 adults 18-49 rating. No one really knows why ABC brought Ted back, but, once again, I can't imagine they'll keep him for next season. Let the commenter chorus of "But you were wrong before!" commence.
Flash Forward ended its fall run on a down note, scoring just a 2.1 rating for adults 18-49. As Gary Seven once said it's ratings can be described as "Descending and accelerating". Only a miraculous ratings turn around after its hiatus can save it now.
Scrubs increased to a 2.3 adults 18-49 rating in its second week. Any sign of life at all like that and it could become another According to Jim -type zombie show ratings loser kept alive just to generate more episodes for syndication.
The Middle has a fighting chance to increase its ratings now that it's been freed of the Hank albatross lead in. Castle fans will not be able to sleep easily until mid-May, the show's certain to be on the bubble the rest of the season.
Ugly Betty will be moving to Wednesday at 10pm beginning January 6. Short of a ratings miracle, there is no chance this does anything but change its final timeslot before cancellation at the end of this season.
the forgotten, has an order for additional episodes, but has continued to drift downward in the ratings and there is no chance it returns in fall 2010. Eastwick and Hank have both been officially canceled. *Hank's Index is frozen at the point it was removed from ABC's schedule.
For shows in the Some Danger category only, I am including short term Index indicators for shows either with either improving or deteriorating Indexes, based on 4 week averages instead of season to date Indexes.
This is a breakdown of ABC 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 a 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.
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 don’t know whats the big woop about that show. it sucks! and is not even funny.
And Better Off Ted fans go crazy….NOW!
I like it. I think it’s pretty funny. Was the show renewed during the 7 episodes that aired during the actual season or the last 6 episodes that aired during the summer? I recall the summer eps did horrible. Never watched Joey, but dang Andrea Anders, who plays Linda, is gorgeous.
You should have said Better off Dead.
Don J, it was renewed after the first 7 were aired. The thinking at the time was ABC would only have to produce 7 more episodes to get 13 for this season, so it made some sense to renew. But then they aired those 6 in the summer, which did away with any sort of sense in the renewal. I like BOT, but it didn’t deserve to be renewed even before the summer airings.
Steven, the Better Off Dead joke already got old last season.
Bill, that last episode of Scrubs went from 2.5/2.6 to 2.0 during the half hour.
That is absolutely not a sign of growth, that’s just changing the dial slowly after a big lead-in.
It always seemed to me as though Ted was renewed because Scrubs was renewed so it could be paired with it again as they didn’t have anything else compatible to pair Ted with. ABC seems to give their sitcoms a much lower bar or hurdle to cross ratings wise even more than other networks.
However, last season during its brief run, I believe Ted was getting very similar numbers to Scrubs and so far this season Ted is lower. If Scrubs does come back again, I doubt Ted will come with it unless Ted has some type of “Til Death” deal going on.
Ted would be Better Off the Air. I’m being serious but Surviving Suburbia and Hank was 10 times better than Ted and it got yanked with better numbers.
Ted was very funny last season. This season opener was depressingly bad, in an effort to make the show more accessible. It’s just dumber. Maybe the new episodes after the Rose Bowl will bring it new eyes that appreciate the simpleton version. Without different eyes coming in, they are alienating the few eyes they had with this, and I can only see the numbers becoming embarrassingly bad.
@Tom:
Scrubs
- 5.438 million viewers
- 3.3/5 HH
- 2.3/6 A18-49
Went down 3 ticks.
actually abc will air two another episodes of eastwick tomorrow & dec 30!!
Frick, the numbers you posted are the averages for the half hour. Scrubs first 15 minutes was 2.5 in the demo, which was due to its large lead-in, and it fell to 2.0 during the second half hour.
they also released promo pictures for episode 12 which has no air date
You were wrong before. . .
F/J –
According to “Travis Yanan”:
Scrubs 9:00-9:30
- 2.3/6 A18-49
Scrubs 9:15-9:30
- 2.0/5 A18-49
With one decimal point, we can’t know if that’s as low as 2.500 rounding up to 2.3 for the half hour, or as high as 2.699 rounding down to 2.3. In any case, that the second 15 minutes isn’t materially different from the premiere week’s ratings of:
9:00-9:15
- 2.1/6 A18-49
9:15-9:30
- 1.9/5 A18-49
9:30-9:45
- 2.1/5 A18-49
9:45-10:00
- 1.9/5 A18-49
indicates that those first 15 minutes from week two were the aberration, and not improvement in the show as a whole.
Better Off Ted was brought back with Scrubs so ABC can say they have hit comedies. Unless BOT improves, it will probably get cancelled since ABC has Modern Family. I like them both and hope BOT improves somehow. Scrubs is still up in the air. Will just have to see how it does tonight.
I know this is beating a dead horse, but another problem Ted is facing is it isn’t an ABC Studios show, but 20th Century FOX. At least Scrubs is produced in house at ABC and even with mediocre ratings last season, I think it was relatively inexpensive to bring back.
Last week’s Scrubs final 18-49 LIve+SD rating reported by Nielsen today was a 2.3, the final ratings of the two episodes the first week were *both* a 2.0.
Feel free to argue with my analysis or conclusions (that’s why they are there!), but there is no need to quarrel about the ratings.
They brought it back for the most obvious of reasons, ABC had no comedy presence on their network what so ever. And based on new series track records, there was no no way of knowing three of the four comedies they were intoducing this fall would succeed.