Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through March 14, 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 |
| The Beautiful Life: TBL (P) | 0.49* |
| Melrose Place (P) | 0.57 |
| 90210 (P) | 0.75 |
| Gossip Girl (P) | 0.86 |
| Smallville (F), (P) | 1.02 |
| One Tree Hill (P) | 1.06 |
| Life Unexpected (P) | 1.06 |
| Supernatural (S), (P) | 1.07 |
| Vampire Diaries (P) | 1.41 |
-
Life Unexpected continues to play its unique (for the CW) "bubble" show role perfectly. When things seems to be getting a bit bleak, it gives fans a bit more hope. Example: After having settled into a 0.8-0.9 adults 18-49 ratings range, it increased to a preliminary 1.0 rating last night, when other 8pm broadcast shows took dives. A little more hope, but not enough to get it out of the woods.
Life Unexpected's adults 18-49 ratings have drifted below the range where I'd be confident of its renewal, but its certainly still possible. I would not expect a decision until the last minute (mid-May).
Note that Life Unexpected's ratings Index includes only new episodes, while the rest of the CW show Indexes contain many repeat airings, so it's difficult to make an apples to apples comparisons without looking at individual episode numbers. That's why the show is colored orange in the list with an Index of 1.06.
One Tree Hill is on far more solid ratings ground. Conventional wisdom is that One Tree Hill renewal is dependent on contractual issues. It has the ratings for renewal.
Melrose Place has no role left to be played other than canceled.
*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:
-
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.
I really believe the LUX will return, based on it's current ratings. CW where way to early in renewing 90210, i mean 1.3 w18-34 wtf:| I want One Tree Hill to return but it doesn't return for another 5 weeks+. I reckon Dawn Bitchstroff won't make the same mistake as 90210 and wait to see the ratings for the final few episodes before deciding whether to solve the contract disputes.
I realized last night on my second watch of this program, that Life Unexpected really is a girl’s show. It got too sappy and girly for me towards the end, so much so I just had to turn.
But up until that point I mostly enjoyed the story line, and I still appreciate that the show has a story line, and developed characters, and is something more than the pointless drivel that makes up most of scripted television.
While I appreciate those fundamentals of the show, it’s clearly not aesthetically geared towards me with the finer points, so I don’t know how much more I’ll be watching it. Probably check in every now and then.
Life Unexpected beat 90210, Melrose Place, and High Society last week, and it improved in ratings despite the daylight savings time issues. When “Fly Girls” premiers I see it beating that as well.
Life Unexpected
- 1.938 million viewers
- 1.2/2 HH
- 0.9/2 A18-49
- 1.1/3 A18-34
- 1.4/4 W18-34
90210
- 1.700 million viewers
- 1.2/2 HH
- 0.8/2 A18-49
- 1.0/3 A18-34
- 1.3/4 W18-34
High Society
-1.256 million viewers
-0.9/1 HH
-0.5/1 A18-49
-0.6/2 A18-34
-0.9/3 W18-34
Melrose Place
- 1.163 million viewers
- 0.8/1 HH
- 0.5/1 A18-49
- 0.6/2 A18-34
- 0.7/2 W18-34
If only CW could un-renew 90210 and Gossip Girl, in a normal world those shows wouldn't see a renewal
They wouldn't un-renew Gossip Girl, because that show is still a top performer when it comes to the targerted W18-34 demo. 90210 on the other hand was renewed too soon.
I really don't see The CW cancelling LUX. Besides The Vampire Diaries, it's only new show that's had decent ratings. The ratings keep going up for it. Demos aside, it had the most views of any scripted show on The CW last week and this week it continued to gain viewers. Not only that but right now it's number 5 on iTunes. The CW would be stupid to cancel it when it's just finding it's audience. If anything I could see them putting it midseason again but I'm fairly confident in a renewal.
But, But, but, LUX is, like, #5 on iTunes.
iTUUNNNNEEESSSSSS!!!!!1!
Life Unexpected is a great show. The writing is superb, acting is so good it is believable and the music is relivant. I haven't seen a better program and I watcfh too much tv. The viewers are tuning in and growing. The CW will renew.
Actually it's 54 and not 5! http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/tv-shows/
Amen
I believe Lux will return. The series has potential and hopefully CW can move away from the rich, bratty, dramas. A lot depends on the new pilots being picked up or not. However with Lux staying steady and even rising this week who knows. CW is a difficult network to understand 90210, GG, etc were renewed early and don't seem to be doing that well, but could also be the repeat lag. Having months of repeats certainly isn't helping the series' that CW currently hold,
Jenny, beating 90210 means something, because the CW liked its numbers enough to renew it. Melrose Place and High Society are dead, so beating them demonstrates nothing useful.
THis are Monday's final numbers :
Life Unexpected
- 2.077 million viewers
- 1.3/2 HH
- 1.0/3 A18-49
- 1.3/4 A18-34
- 1.9/6 W18-34
Gossip Girl
- 1.728 million viewers
- 1.2/2 HH
- 1.0/3 A18-49
- 1.4/4 A18-34
- 2.1/6 W18-34
LUX went up in W18-34 and it's close to GG ratings!
It's currently number #7. I'm pretty sure that list you posted is not updated.
That's good news! I really hope Life unexpected gets renewed, maybe at least for mid season! 13 episodes would be better than nothing!
I'm pulling for Lux or OTH at this point. I wish they would cancel GG, the third season is so bad.
I guess my point is at least it's beating other shows on the network, and the ratings are beginning to stabilize without the help of OTH as a lead-in. It could just be a sinking ship like Melrose Place. I mean, High Society scored higher ratings then last week's new episode of Melrose Place. I know it was a series premier, but still. That show is horrible. I'm really curious to see what show gets higher ratings this week.Will it be High Society or Melrose Place? With Melrose Place facing off against American Idol I can already see a dip in ratings.
On the contrary, that Lux against “old people shows” (both HIMYM and Chuck skew towards 35-49) barely beat 90210 against freaking AI demonstrates which show is stronger. Here's a hint, it's the one with a number in the title.
“Besides The Vampire Diaries, it's only new show that's had decent ratings. The ratings keep going up for it. “
And Smallville doesn't? Smallville does an average of 2.5 million viewers on a FRIDAY, that's more then what 90210,Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, and sometimes Supernatural do.
If you were to see Smallville's numbers last year, they had an average of 3.8 million viewers. The first ten episodes of last years season 8 were all above 4 million viewers!
* Plus another factor to notice about Smallville is the DVR numbers it brings, it's constantly number 1, 2 or 3 on the top 10 most DVR'd items! This week it came number 1 ^^
I have a feeling that LUX will be renewed…the real test will be next fall.