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 |
| The Beautiful Life: TBL (P) | 0.49* |
| Melrose Place (P) | 0.64 |
| 90210 (P) | 0.89 |
| Smallville (F), (P) | 0.90 |
| Supernatural (S), (P) | 0.98 |
| Gossip Girl (P) | 0.99 |
| One Tree Hill (P) | 1.00 |
| Vampire Diaries (P) | 1.30 |
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Melrose Place ratings are so woeful, and its chances of being canceled at the end of the season so certain, that its last two new episodes (with 0.7 adults 18-49 ratings) failed to beat repeats of Supernatural, Smallville and (several) Vampire Diaries over the last 3 weeks.
Speaking of repeats, the CW's practice of starting their season two weeks ahead of the rest of the official start of the broadcast season is Coming Home to roost. In the last four weeks they've aired a total of eight new episodes of scripted shows.
*I have frozen The Beautiful Life's Index at its value the week of cancellation.
This is a breakdown of CW 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.
As much as I kind of liked the fall finale, I cannot see a scenario where ‘Melrose Place’ goes beyond its 18-episode order.
Hopefully this once and for all squelches Miss Ostroff’s strategy for reviving old FOX hits. She’d be better looking in the UPN or WB libraries…re-booted versions of ‘Charmed’, ‘Veronica Mars’ and ‘Star Trek’ could help lift her network.
Melrose Place doesnt even return until March 9 yet we are still insulting it. Cant wait for Life Unexpected to premiere. It will give u something else to talk about unless the show does extremely well.
I don’t know if CBS would let any future Star Trek series air on The CW due to that networks performance. If they are serious about a Trek reboot then I believe it will happen in the 10pm slot on CBS itself.
What (still) bugs me is that they canned Reaper for this crud – Reaper was a hit compared with Melrose!
WHATS WITH BASHING MELROSE PLACE ALL THE TIME..WE GET IT ALREADY..NOT SURE ON THE CHANCES OF SURVIVAL EITHER BUT I STILL PLAN ON ENJOYING THE NEXT 6 EPISODES. I DO HAVE TO SAY THAT IM CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC FOR RENEWAL..BUT WHO KNOWS…THERE ARE OTHER NETWORK SHOWS THAT ARE LISTED IN THE INDEX FOR THIS WEBSITE AWITH SLIMMER CHANCES.
Every few months I hear that Rob Thomas is doing something for The CW which consistently makes me believe Dawn is ashamed that she cancelled Veronica Mars.
I also find it hilarious that VM was worthy for cancellation then when comparing VM’s ratings to The CW now-a-days, it’s better than anything else they have on.
Also, CAPS GRAB MY ATTENTION!
Thanks for the update!
I’m confused why SUPERNATURAL has slipped down the index, when it used to be higher, and it gets consistently better ratings than GOSSIP GIRL and ONE TREE HILL?
Thanks!
Fate, Supernatural’s Index didn’t slip from last week to this week. It was 0.98 both weeks. And Supernatural does not get “consistently better ratings than GOSSIP GIRL and ONE TREE HILL” their 18-49 ratings averages (which include repeats) are 1.08, 1.09 and 1.10. It does slightly better in its new episode ratings than the other two, but the difference between the three is very small.
I can’t believe this embarassment of a remake is still on the air. FOX or CBS would’ve yanked it after 2 eps but CW orders 6 more? WTF! If I was Dawn O I’d crawl under my desk and cry out of pure shame. It must’ve cost them a small fortune to get Heather Locklear and it didn’t even help the ratings one little bit. Repeats of Vampire Diaries almost outperform it at this point. Just sad….I miss Veronica Mars and Reaper both were great series and were cancelled to make room for this garbage?
When you calculate the averages for shows, how do you take into account pre-emptions? I mean, as you said above, the averages for GoGi, OTH and SPN including repeats are very tight, but SPN has been consistently pre-empted for weeks, I think that at least both 5×09 and 5×10 were and its repeat after that too. And its pre-empted repeat drew the same viewership/demo as the not pre-empted repeats of GoGi and OTH.
I miss Veronica Mars, that was a great show, almost HBO worthy in it’s dark themes.
Oh good Lord. You people have nothing to write about. This show isn’t even on and you’re still obsessed with it. What will you guys write about if it actually does end, which I still don’t think it will?!
Robert, you see the index. TBL has been canceled. Every show except Melrose Place is safe for now. What is Bill supposed to mention in this weekly post? He could skip CW until there are further developments but people would complain then also.
Just a little curious Bill…do you know how did Melrose did last night with it’s pilot ratings?? Thanks.
I had just realized this Smallville ended the fall season with 9 episodes aired and not 10 I wonder why. O and everyone who is a fan of Smallville it comes back Jan 22 and the Smallville movie airs Feb 5
Speaking of reruns, what about Stargate Atlantis – I saw someone who claimed they were out performing stargate universe.
I had a feeling MP was in trouble when they announced Heather Locklear was coming on the show. But even she couldn’t help. Why Dawn O. didn’t yank this as quickly as TBL and move up the premiere of LUX is beyond me.
Smallville 4 life!!!! lol SCREW DAWN OSTROFF 4 LIFE.. SHE MOVED SMALLVILLE TO FRIDAYS RESULTING IN SMALLVILLE HAVING BAD CW LIKE RATINGS..
Last year it was, as I believe, the only show aside from ANTM to get above 4 million viewers!!!!!!1 DAWN OSTROFF SUCKS.
Melrose returns in January, not March. That’s Gossip Girl.
While I’m just about the last person on the planet who enjoys seeing Ms. Ostroff succeed — she has no use for my favorite genre, so I have no use for her — I’m very happy that “The Vampire Diaries” is a runaway hit (by CW standards). For one, it virtually ensures the end of the waste-of-time/space/money that is “Melrose Place 2.0.” For two, it shuts up those nimrods who were moaning this past May about the network passing on that brain-dead politics pilot. The one they didn’t even see. My head still reels when I think of that ridiculous (obviously teenage) poster here who scolded me for panning that thing without having seen it in its entirety, all the while they were praising it to the hilt and going on and on and ON about what a travesty of justice it was that the CW passed because it was their only sure-fire hit, blah blah blah — and THEY hadn’t seen it in its entirety.
Brad, 90210 and Melrose Place are going on hiatus. Not returning until March 9. If it were returning in January, they would be giving a date like they did for One Tree Hill, Life Unexpected, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, and Smallville instead of saying new episodes coming soom.