Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (includes results through December 20, 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) | 0.42 |
| Better Off Ted | 0.48 |
| Hank | 0.54* |
| Eastwick | 0.60 |
| the forgotten | 0.61 |
| Scrubs (P) | 0.70 |
| The Middle |  0.72 |
| Castle (P) | 0.76 |
| FlashForward (P) |  0.95 |
| Cougar Town (P) | 1.00 |
| Brothers & Sisters (S), (P) | 1.09 |
| Private Practice (P) | 1.10 |
| Modern Family | 1.14 |
| V | 1.31 |
| Desperate Housewives (P) | 1.63 |
| Grey's Anatomy (P) | 1.63 |
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Well, that was quick. With the announcement that ABC will double up Scrubs and Better Off Ted during January to burn off the available episodes of both shows their fates are sealed. Both will be canceled at the end of this season.
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.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.
There was no announcement that Scrubs and Better Off Ted were cancelled. If they were, ABC wouldnt still be promoting the shows. ABC never promotes shows they cancel. Theyre not NBC.
What he means rob is that whenever a network does something like this (runs shows back to back to finish them off in January) it seals their fate that they WILL BE canceled.
My superfan-like curiosity question is what are the odds (if any) would Better Off Ted have at being picked up elsewhere (like Southland).
I personally think it would fit perfectly into TBS and their comedies. Also with the news of the new Starz president it would be an easy fit there as well, although I doubt since I’m sure they’re looking into creating their own shows from scratch.
I think the accelerated scheduling in January is for no other reason that ABC already has lots of fresh episodic inventory to fill February through May, and there is an advantage of using the ‘Rose Bowl’ lead-in to promote these series as destination Tuesday comedy TV in January. If the numbers are sweet, it will bring even more of the ‘Scrubs’/'Better Off Ted’ elusive M18-49 demo to Tuesday nights, which can only help the launch the final season of ‘Lost’ on Tuesday nights in February.
The line in the sand for ‘Better Off Ted’s renew-cancel prospects is the M18-49 retention out of the ‘Rose Bowl’.
I was just beginning to like Better off Ted; that musta clinched it.
There’s some funny, funny dialog in there!
Better Off Ted is on right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Its up against all repeats. If it cant pull better ratings tonight, i just dont know!
I think ABC jumped the gun with Scrubs. Better Off Ted was doing horribly, but at least Scrubs was somewhere close to The Middle.
Scrubs was doubled up on episodes last season too and they still revived it for this season. I wouldn’t say it’s dead just yet.
The 1337, the best Scrubs pulled was a 2.3 but that was after a huge 4+ demo lead in. Scrubs plummeted last week, and I doubt that it’s going to do any better tonight. Especially considering it had a repeat of AFV as it’s lead in.
Title is a little misleading imo, Scrubs still has a good chance of coming back because of Syndication.
Static I’d give Scrubs a 15% chance at getting a 10th season. ABC has a lot of comedies in development (20 according to The Futon Critic) and Scrubs fate will lie in how those shows in development go. I’m not saying ABC will pickup most of them, but they have already ordered two shows to pilots according to The Hollywood Reporter (but The Futon Critic is saying 3 have been ordered to Pilot) and that tells me that ABC is aggressively going for stronger comedies next year.
in all seriousness, I think these posts are not that good….what is the point of this index? nets dont make decisions by this formula.
So far ABC greenlighted 3 comedies: Matthew Perry comedy, “Women are Crazy, Men are Stupid”, and “Awkward Situations for Men”
Honestly I’m surprised that either of them got renewed from last season.
If it is canceled, I wish they would have let Scrubs end last season. That was a great finale. Only one year of [Med School] isn’t the fondest way to send this long running sitcom off.
I agree Joleen…these posts/headlines only serve to fire up the hardcore fans in order to post and lure in more visitors to the site. Everyone thought both “Ted” and “Scrubs” were gone last season and both survived. Now, I’m not saying that they won’t be canceled, but ABC isn’t going to do so based on some rankings at a television website.
Just because a network orders up a comedy pilot doesn’t mean it will land on the air, so just because a network is aggressively going after comedies doesn’t really mean anything right now, because the only thing the networks are going off of is a pitch (which doesn’t always translate well on the screen).
However, I do agree that ABC has a deep bench and only so many time periods. Both “Ted”/”Scrubs” were going to lose their time slots in February – thanks to “Lost” and “Dancing With the Stars” – so where was ABC going to put them? The only night I could think of would be Friday, and we all know that is were shows go to die (unless you’re CBS, a 20-year old crime drama or a cheap newsmagazine).
Scrubs will be renewed for the same reasons why they renewed According to Jim. Better off Ted on the other hand is a goner.
Anthony, Scrubs *could* be renewed for the same reasons why they renewed According to Jim. Based on the burn off plan, I think that’s unlikely now.
Hey, I loved the Star Trek reference. “Assignment:Earth” was my very most favorite episode ever. It was a back door pilot, and as a kid, I desperately wanted to see it go to series. Oh, well . . .
Anyway, as a Better Off Ted devotee, I am inclined to hang on and hope for a miracle. Someone in network television must recognize what a gem this is. On the other hand, they are the same people clogging the airwaves with so-called “reality” tv (aka “artless crap”).
Bill Gorman says:
December 22, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Anthony, Scrubs *could* be renewed for the same reasons why they renewed According to Jim. Based on the burn off plan, I think that’s unlikely now.
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I dispute that it is a burn-off, a term more appropriate for summer time when there is lots of unaired episodes for which network airing rights are about to expire.
‘Scrubs’ and ‘Better Off Ted’ are undergoing an accelerated playoff, which is an ABC scheduling strategy used before for sitcoms that received later renewals such as ‘Samantha Who’, ‘George Lopez’ and ‘According to Jim’.
For ‘According to Jim’ in its last three seasons, ABC used in-season accelerated playoffs (double-ups) rather than a regular timeslot to get through the full season order in a short period of time.
‘Better Off Ted’ is still in play, awaiting a epochal Oregon-Ohio gridiron battle during the ‘Rose Bowl’ to give it a one-time mega M18-49 rating so that ABC can be sure the series gets a proper sampling before it makes its renewal decision.
Who knows, if these shows take off post-’Rose Bowl’, ABC just might renew ‘Scrubs’/'Better Off Ted’ to use as inter-season comedy filler again next year.
. ABC never promotes shows they cancel.
Catch “Hudson Street” on its new night, Saturday, followed by “Maybe This Time.”
Is FOX still running “Dollhouse” ads?