Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through January 17, 2010):
- Likely To Be Canceled By May, 2010
- Some Danger Of Being Canceled By May, 2010
- Likely to Be Renewed For The 2010-11 Season
- Renewed For The 2010-11 Season
| Program | Renew/ Cancel Index |
| Law & Order (F), (P) | 0.54 |
| Mercy (P) | 0.65 |
| Trauma (P) | 0.67 |
| Parks & Recreation (P) | 0.74 |
| Community | 0.81 |
| Heroes (P) | 0.88 |
| Law & Order: SVU (P) | 0.95 |
| Chuck | 0.96 |
| 30 Rock (P) | 1.05 |
| The Office (P) | 1.46 |
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So far, so good for Chuck. A 2.6 adults 18-49 rating last week and a 2.5 rating Monday night bode well for another season if it can hold at those levels. Anything less, and let the worrying begin.
Last week I wrote that Heroes' chance at renewal was hanging by a thread. Monday night's 1.8 adults 18-49 rating was the scissors. Only a miracle recovery is going to save it for next season at this point.
Now that NBC's freed up 5 more hours of primetime post-Leno, some marginal shows like Parks & Recreation and Community all of a sudden look a lot better for renewal.
As horrible as the situation is, I've got to believe NBC will try something new other than the ratings sinkholes Trauma and Mercy. Even starving post-Leno beggars have to be a little bit choosy.
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.
[/begin happy chuck fanboys]
Nice going NBC. Thanks to your 10:00 PM mess up, the public will probably have to endure more Parks & Recreation. The 2nd most unfunniest show on TV (behind Leno). Thank goodness for remotes.
Go Chuck! Great news for a show fighting the odds for some time.
I’m so happy I could cry. I’ve been reading the news about Chuck all year but seeing it up there in green, best news since I heard it got renewed and for 19 episodes. I was really stressing out over Chuck last year, seriously, it wasn’t healthy. 0_o Third place! That pretty good. Pretty darn good.
Fanboys? I’m a fangirl. =D
Is the index adjusted for Sunday Night Football? (im assuming not given that only 2 shows are above average)
my bad, [FANPEOPLE!]
better?
What’s really sad about that listing above is how FEW shows NBC actually has that are scripted! ABC and CBS has like 15-20…and FOX has more shows and they don’t program the 10pm hour and they have A LOT of reality hours on their schedule with AI, Kitchen Nightmares (Hell’s Kitchen), and others.
Happy to see Chuck in the green…hope it can stay there considering the massive clean-up that NBC is going to need to do come fall.
Matt, Chuck’s number includes just a single regular episode on Monday 1/11.
Yup! =D
If any show deserves a blushing-with-embarrassment “deteriorating” face, I think it would be “Heroes.” P.S. I believe the shows Matt was referring to being above average were “The Office” and “30 Rock.”
Now while Chuck has done well, NBC still needs some stronger shows, Heroes is falling way too fast, so i believe this will be the last season, could Parenthood help bring NBC out of it’s funk, highly doubt it, but maybe NBC will realize soon that the network needs to be blown up and restarted from scratch, save some shows obiviously.
Mercy doesn’t have good ratings? why they will cancel it?
Now that NBC’s freed up 5 more hours of primetime post-Leno, some marginal shows like Parks & Recreation and Community all of a sudden look a lot better for renewal.
I don’t quite understand this logic. Since there’s not any chance of NBC putting either of those sitcoms in the 10 pm hour (fair assumption, I think), how does those hours becoming open improve those shows chances in any way? I understand how it would improve things for hour-longs, but sitcoms, not so much.
Just letting you guys know that NBC has ordered 3 extra episodes of Community and 2 extra episodes of Parks and Recreation for their current seasons.
Seems like a good chance of being renewed!
Yes! Glad to see Chuck in the green!!
Parks is the funniest show on tv by far.
Hopefully this means NBC will take Chuck out of the “competing directly with House” slot.
I’d still be surprised if all four Thursday comedies return next season – not heart attack surprised by surprised none the less. I just think NBC will want to slot something new into the Thursday line-up come next year and to me Parks looks like the obvious one to cut at this stage.
Elsewhere who knows what the hell is going on with NBC and their schedule.
Andrew, it means that a couple shows, namely the L & O are moving back into the 10 pm hour thus freeing up space all over NBC’s programing schedule.