Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (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 |
| Til Death (S), (F) | 0.22 |
| Dollhouse (F), (P) | 0.25 |
| Brothers (F) | 0.26 |
| Fringe |  0.61 |
| Bones (P) | 0.79 |
| Lie To Me (P) | 0.81 |
| American Dad (P) | 0.91 |
| Glee (P) | 0.96 |
| The Cleveland Show (P) | 1.10 |
| The Simpsons (P) | 1.18 |
| Family Guy (P) | 1.23 |
| House | 1.45 |
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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 (3.4 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.
Fringe will air a new episode after the "return" episode of House on January 11. That sounds a lot to me like a last chance to prove its got the potential for better ratings somewhere else in the schedule besides Thursday at 9pm. Fans should keep their fingers crossed for a big ratings night.
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.
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 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.
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.
Considering that the “new” Fringe episode is an unaired season 1 episode, I doubt it will do good.
Well it’s going to be Fringe Vs Heroes… and personally I expect one of the two of those shows to get canned at the end of the season because of it as both are on the knife edge ratings wise.
Probably more likely that Fringe goes than Heroes given NBC’s current woes – but if Fringe can effectively take a portion of the Sci-Fi audience from NBC @ 9pm it should get another season. (I’m sure thats whats written in the assassins contract – kill Heroes and you’re guaranteed another season! heh)
I’m one of those who watched ‘Fringe’ in season one, rather liked it, but haven’t seen a single second season episode because of better choices on Thursday nights for my live viewing and DVR. About one-third of Fringe’s 2008-09 5.3HH/8%, 3.58 A18-49, 8,773,000 P2+ viewer base has deserted the series this season. Will they come back? Will I come back? Will Mr. Leonard Nimoy come back? On this question rests a future life for the ‘Fringe’.
I’m betting this isn’t a test for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not part of the current story arc and not being promoted. I suppose that could also be seen as an attempt to bury the show but I doubt Fox wants to piss off Abrams. Second, Fringe needs a third season to maximize syndication value. Two seasons of Fringe is relatively valueless but give it a third season (or more) and it is a shoe-in for a nice slot on USA, TNT, or ScyFy for the next 3 or 4 years.
@Dave R,
But since FOX doesn’t own Fringe, it will never see any of that syndication money, so they don’t care.
I’ve got 5 quatloos that say the random mathematical collection in that image is but a simulacrum of handwriting. The Heisenberg relationship is wrong by a factor of either pi or twice that, the ‘h’ in Planck’s constant bears no resemblance to the one just above, the ‘g’ just below the other earlobe is a typographical peculiarity, and somebody forgot to yarn-up the d^2 just above it.
Boris, and the cast photos with the mathematical gibberish are the easiest ones on the Fox site to grab for my purposes
Yeah the episode airing that monday is a unseen episode from season 1 which I’m sure they’ll promote as a lost episode.
Good Thanks So Much fox, You finally made a good move. But Now Im more concerned for Heroes,:(
I don’t think putting the episode on Monday is about giving Fringe a chance to prove itself: its about screwing with NBC. Of course, if Fringe doesn’t do all that well, then they’ll certainly use that as justification when they do cancel it, but I think that’s more of a side benefit than the reason for the decision.
Psssst, Holly, just between you and me, I agree, but I have to try and come up with something every week and Fringe is the only show in any danger right now on Fox.
The rest of you, nothing to read here, please move along.
LOL!
Bill Gorman says:
“Boris, and the cast photos with the mathematical gibberish are the easiest ones on the Fox site to grab for my purposes
”
Oh, yah, yah. I’m just surprised that they would go to the trouble of hand-distressing the stuff yet commit such gross omissions. The alpha right on the earlobe looks like standard TeX output, but it’s hard to tell because of the earlobe proper. The undistressed ‘d’ to its left is built on an overly fat italic body typical of the casual modern typesetting that confuses tools with “enterprise solutions,” which is why the superscript ’2′ (which does look to have been retouched) is closer to the alpha than the ‘d’ to which it belongs.
I realize this is of almost no plausible interest to anyone but myself, but it’s been a long day, and at least I’m not rehashing Anna Torv’s family tree.
Bill Gorman says:
Psssst, Holly, just between you and me, I agree, but I have to try and come up with something every week and Fringe is the only show in any danger right now on Fox.
I’m not sure I agree with your assessment that Fringe is the only Fox show in danger. I wouldn’t consider Lie To Me 100% safe. Its ratings in the post House slot were only average at best. It also got an order for more episodes which currently have no place on the schedule. The only thing Lie To Me has going for it over Fringe is the fact that it is produced by 20th Century Fox and Fringe isn’t.
“That sounds a lot to me like a last chance to prove its got the potential for better ratings somewhere else in the schedule besides Thursday at 9pm.”
Yeah, should be real tough for Fringe to bump up its ratings after powerhouse House. I mean, it’s not like that hasn’t happened before or anything. /rolls eyes yet again.
“Last chance”? Spare me, Deputy Downer. Fox is just trying to bump up its Thursday nights by using the Monday episode to try and convince more people to watch the show live. Fringe’s “last chance” won’t start until after the show returns from its 7 week hiatus.
Fringe was getting screwed by the overloaded Thursday competition IMO… only problem is the next worst night is Monday. If it were on Tues/Wed it would do much better.
Is bones supposed to be .89 or is it just in the wrong place?
Kathy, I would agree. I’d say the risk to Lie To Me is definitely not zero, but at this point I think that Lie To Me is relatively safe, and Fringe is relatively at risk.
sammy01, thanks for the catch, the numbers were correct, I just failed to resort the list after updating the numbers this week. Now fixed.
Opinion: Fringe is fun but the pseudo-science (as in completely fictional) really grated on my nerves as a sci-fi fan in general. As for gaining back viewers, has a heavy serialized show ever done that? I think Fringe is on borrowed time; it doesn’t have a very dedicated audience depending now on House to lead it in and its potential for growth doesn’t seem all too great. Time for the next big thing.