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 |
| Law & Order (F), (P) |  0.52 |
| Trauma (P) | 0.65 |
| Mercy (P) | 0.68 |
| Parks & Recreation (P) | 0.73 |
| Community | 0.79 |
| Heroes (P) | 0.87 |
| Law & Order: SVU (P) | 0.90 |
| 30 Rock (P) | 1.09 |
| The Office (P) | 1.48 |
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Last season Chuck averaged a 2.4 adults 18-49 rating including repeats. This season because of the general ratings carnage at NBC, if Chuck can average that same rating with no repeats I think it's a lock for another season. Seems as easy as falling off a log, but is it?
NBC didn't air a single new scripted episode last week, so the show's on the bubble (Law & Order, Parks & Recreation, Community and Heroes) are still right where they were, and the shows that will certainly be canceled Trauma and Mercy are still just as certainly canceled.
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 NBC 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.
Given the NBC landscape, ‘Chuck’ is a slam-dunk renewal if it can hold its previous season’s audiences.
Increasingly, I’m also thinking NBC will give ‘Heroes’ yet another reprieve.
come on Parks and Rec, you can do it!!
I have a feeling that Chuck will hold it’s ratings from last year better than other NBC shows have this year. It’s one of the few returning shows to keep it’s old timeslot and that has to work in it’s favor. Pair that with the fact that TBBT isn’t it’s competition this year it should hold up to what it did last year. It’s going to be interesting watching what it’s ratings do.
What exactly’s going on with the gun in her right hand?
HAHA, it’s a new super secret half gun Jack!
Jack, I grabbed that graphic off the main Chuck page at NBC, but didn’t notice the gun was only half there.
@Jack
That picture is from the NBC Chuck website. The rest of teh gun is covered by a banner.
I agree with Tommy, as long as Chuck keeps it’s ratings from last year it should be Ok for renewal but you never know.
Should the NFL Sunday ratings be considered as part of the Renew/Cancel index for NBC? They’re such an outlier (figuratively and maybe literally) that raise the bar way too high for what the real renew/cancel index should be, aren’t they?
It does say something about the state of the network – their 2 big ratings tentpoles can do nothing in terms of lead-in to other programming, unless you’re local news or The TV Host That Shall Not Be Named
Carter Dotson, I agree with your point about NBC. It’s similar to Fox and American Idol. For Fox, I take that into account by freezing the Fox overall season average the week before Idol begins for calculation purposes. I haven’t done anything special in the past two years for NBC, but now that I am doing more of the calculations manually than in the past I may look into it.
You mean Jay Leno?
I really hope community gets canned. I’d really like to see that 100 quetions get a mid-season spot in the thursday night line up. It could bring some life back into the night. (For NBC that is)
It’s disappointing to see The Office lead NBC’s lineup despite the show being past its prime and getting lamer every week. I’ve really been enjoying Community, so I hope it makes the cut!
Man, I hope NBC’s ad campaign did enough this time to drum up some interest. The key art was pretty lively, at least.
GOOOOOO CHUCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!11111111 Funny story: my friend is a huge heroes fan and I tried to get him to work chuck. He’s reluctant because he dvr’s heroes and chuck is right before so he always catches the last 5 minutes of chuck and its usually something serious or romantic with Sarah and Chuck so he thinks its lame. I still gave him my dvd’s so I hope it hooks him.
As for the numbers, NBC is pushing it pretty hard it looks like it should at least do as well as last season given slightly less stiff competition at that timeslot with TBBT moved.
I think of the shows on the cut, P&R is more likely to be cancelled than community. Community has some bright spots such as being number 1 with males 18-34 and has shown some decent growth (given that the episode quality has really improved from the mediocre early episodes). P&R was suppose to appeal to the same Office audience but so far it has really yet to do that and really, where will the growth come from if not from the same people that already watch a show thats almost exactly the same?
No BBT + the fact that House is down + MONSTER promotion = similar ratings, at least hopefully.
I don’t think renewal is going to be as easy for Chuck as its fan seem to think. It needs to be remembered that Chuck is back because Subway heavily invested in it, that was seemingly the deciding factor that pushed NBC over on renewal (because it made it cheaper) so the question becomes are Subway going to want an increased return on their increased investment? Its hard to see the answer to that being yes.
So yes NBC will likely be happy with a low 2 but if you’ve gone from investing $500k to $1 million in a show (and those are just random made up numbers) what exactly are you expecting back from it and will a low 2 give you that? If Subway aren’t getting some kind of increased exposure and/or revenue out of this deal they won’t stick with it and if they aren’t sticking with it will NBC renew?
Falling off a log may be difficult. Finding one’s own rear with two hands, on the other hand, Chuck may be able to do.
If Fox is taken off Time Warner Cable, then some of those customers can tune to Chuck on NBC!
The bar at NBC is set low enough that small rodents could jump over it at this point. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some shows that will be tunneling under it anyway (Mercy, Trauma, for example).
Chuck has some changes coming with the show (such as a long, possibly season-long absence of Anna Wu — budget cut? mistake? — and the new Intersect) and they certainly have the PR push behind it. Still, if it doesn’t keep the ratings stable or going up… renewal may not be so easy. Low bars can trip people up, too, you know.
As I’ve said before, good luck to Chuck and the fans. Enjoy!
Alex, I see your point about Subway but if Chuck gets the same ratings that it got last year it will be one of NBC’s top 5 scripted shows. So while Subway may not be pleased with mid 2′s, NBC would basically be put in a position of having to pick it up. Unless they decide to do a total reboot of primetime (which I don’t think that has any reasonable chance of happening until the Comcast deal is completely done, GE isn’t going to want to invest the money it would take to reinvent NBC primetime and Comcast would be reluctant to spend that kind of money until all the regulatory obstacles are cleared, so maybe in the 2011-12 or 2012-13 season) NBC wouldn’t be able to justify canceling it.
The big question for me is can Chuck get the ratings that it got last year? I think it has a good shot because there are several things working in it’s favor to get those numbers, but NBC has bled so many viewers as a network that Chuck may end up down this season. Like I said earlier it’s going to be interesting to watch Chucks ratings.