Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through February 21, 2010):
- Likely To Be Canceled By May, 2010; Officially Canceled
- 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 |
| Til Death (S), (F) | 0.20 |
| Dollhouse (F), (P) | 0.23 |
| Brothers (F) | 0.24 |
| Til Death (Sunday) | 0.24 |
| Past Life | 0.35 |
| Fringe | 0.58 |
| Human Target (Wed only) | 0.63 |
| Lie To Me (P) | 0.68 |
| Bones (P) | 0.72 |
| Glee (P) | 0.74 |
| American Dad (P) | 0.76 |
| The Cleveland Show (P) | 0.85 |
| 24 | 0.90 |
| The Simpsons (P) | 0.97 |
| Family Guy (P) | 1.00 |
| House | 1.17 |
-
I give up trying to figure out how to adjust the Fox overall season average ratings for sports and American Idol. Folks will just have to refrain from comparing Fox's list to the other networks' lists. The order of the shows is far more important than the Index values in Fox's case, and the "magic" 0.90 Index for renewal will not be appropriate.
Human Target's first 3 weeks in its "regular" Wednesday 8pm timeslot produced adults 18-49 ratings of 2.4, 2.5, and 2.1. Discounting the last one as being vs. an historic Winter Olympics night, its got to be considered to be one of Fox's three "bubble" shows. Is it the weakest of the three? Note: the Index value above is for only Target's Wednesday 8pm episodes.
All the schedule experiments have shown little practical ratings difference between Fringe and Lie To Me. Your guess is as good as mine what Fox does. At this point I don’t think I’d be terribly surprised by any combination of their renewal or cancellation (either one, both, neither).
Past Life was canceled before it even appeared in the Index!
Dollhouse is officially canceled. Brothers seems to be canceled in practice, but Fox is silent. 'Til Death continues to bounce around the Fox schedule, currently Sundays at 7pm. I'd be stunned if it was back again, but I was stunned last spring too.
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 short term averages instead of season to date Indexes.
I’ve added a new category, Renewed For The 2010-11 Season, for shows who’s renewal has already been announced for the next season. It may take a while to get all the past announcements noted, let me know what I have missed, yet be patient.
This is a breakdown of Fox scripted shows and their renewal and cancellation prospects. Here are links to the other networks:
-
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: ©2010 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All ratings used are Live+Same Day viewing.
Lie To Me and Fringe need to return, honestly believe those shows are the future of Fox. @4 is aging, and if Keifer is done so is the series, Human Target depends on what Fox was expecting out of it. Funny enough I believe Til Death can actually survive, still have a lot of un-aired episodes still.
I like all three shows, but I’d gladly throw Lie to Me and Human Target under the bus to save Fringe.
With SYTUCD returning in the summer I think HT is fine
If i had to choose between HT, Fringe and 24 i’d say cancel 24. The show used to be my favorite show, now it’s just a shadow of it’s former self, more or less a joke
Not enough info. We don’t what Fox is planning for this Fall for the Idol slots (reality placeholder or “real” shows), and we don’t know if 24 will switch to the movie version after this season. That’s 3-4 hours unaccounted for – Fox could easily keep all three or drop all three.
Personally, I view LtM being buried in Summer as an extreme warning sign, and would be shocked if it returns. HT probably only returns if 24 doesn’t come back and Fox wants an action hour there and Fringe does not move there. That’s a lot of ifs.
Well the star is recently wed to Anna Torv, Murdoch’s neice so that will help a little. It’s funny how they both got their own shows to star in.
@Vetinari – Yet again:
Torv is Murdoch’s ex-niece in law. There’s no blood there, and from the breakup in the press, there’s no love there either.
Torv and Valley got together while they were already working on Fringe. Valley had already starred in another Fox series before then (Keen Eddie).
Murdoch has notoriously removed his own children from the succession plans.
So you tell me if your theory seems even remotely likely.
I’m a big Human Target fan, but I’m afraid that the show will be the odd man out come time for the May upfronts.
I can’t make a prediction until I know whether SYTYCD will be in the fall again. If so, that’s 3 hours/week gone; if not, then there’s room for bubble shows.
Shouldn’t Fringe get a smiley face for the run it’s had recently?
My guess is Fringe does a couple of ticks better down the stretch run and nails down a renewal.
If Human Target stays steady or drops only slightly it will be back. Hasn’t Fox been more lenient with shows that start in the winter/spring? Dollhouse comes to mind but wasn’t Lie To Me the same as well? I could be thinking of something else.
nkinsey, my guess is we won’t know about SYTYCD in the fall (or some similar unscripted show) until the full schedule announcement in May, when we’ll learn about everything else too.
@Tom
Well I think you are guessing and assuming a lot, as much as you think I am. At least I admit it though.
But I will give you this point: I really enjoyed Keen Eddie and was unhappy with it getting cancelled, and even if there was no Torv or Murdoch, Valley would be fully qualified to headline a show like this.
Scott M, I had the old text (now edited) still in the post about a 4 week trend, but have changed to just looking at the two previous weeks. Since Fringe didn’t air a regular timeslot episode in the last two weeks, there’s no short term trend.
I thought we already knew about SYTYCD. Didn’t Nigel state emphatically that whatever FOX decides, there will only be one edition this year? And then didn’t we already learn that it will be aired in the summer? Perhaps I misread something, or dreamed this, but I could have sworn that it was already announced that it would air this summer.
Til Death is really a thorn in my side! I get seriously mad everytime I see it’s still on!
I mean, if taking it out of primetime and airing two seasons back-to-back doesn’t kill it I don’t know what will.
Fox should get rid of both them and Brothers (if they hadn’t already canned them) and make an hour-long comedy block. They already have those 4 animated series, and with two additional non-animated sitcoms they can have 6 half hour-long series and be like the other networks (I think ABC and NBC are going to do the same thing since it works so well for CBS.)
The rest: 24 – cancel; Fringe – renew; Lie to Me and Fringe – too soon to tell but I think they can both make it. It surprises me they haven’t already renewed House but I think we know there’s no danger there
I knew I didn’t dream it:
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/02/04/so-you-think-you-can-dance-swings-into-summer-with-7th-season-premiere-on-may-27/41067
So if we can believe what Nigel said about them only doing one edition this year, then that means FOX has three hours in their fall schedule to fill.
Devdog, The “once a year” for SYTYCD was a wish, not a certainty. And since there is only one more fall to fill (before X-factor in 2011), its within the realm of possibility that SYTYCD still goes on this fall.
Interesting fact about HUMAN TARGET – FOX sold it to advertisers as being the next hit hit hit show. They sold the advertising spots at the highest rate for any show this season.
Where are you getting your information, gossi?
Not that I don’t believe you. I just don’t believe THAT.
Advertisers. They paid an average of $145k per 30 second ad spot for HUMAN TARGET. By comparison GLEE costs around $127k.
So on one hand, HUMAN TARGET is extremely profitable. On the other hand, it’s getting 2.1 in the demo.