Weekly Recap:
There was some carnage over the past week: NBC's Animal Practice was canceled and ABC announced there would be no more episodes of Private Practice after the 13 already ordered for this season finish airing. There was some good news too though, at least if you're a Bob's Burgers fan. Fox ordered 22 more episodes for what it's calling a fourth season. If I did the math right it's the third production cycle for the animated comedy and it will leave at least 13 episodes on the shelf and available to air after the current 2012-13 season.
Back to a "no prediction designations" tablethis week. I realize fans of the Bubble Watch will not be happy about this. Maybe I will make them happier later in the season, maybe not! If you can't stand not having any predictions, you can head on over to the Renew/Cancel Index. There's usually not much disagreement anyway, and certainly not any big disagreements.
Last year the biggest disagreement I had with the Renew/Cancel Index probably involved the CW shows. I was not so sure about The Secret Circle sooner than Bill and liked Heart of Dixie's prospects better. But by the time May rolled around the gap wasn't very big. I gave Hart Of Dixie the edge over The Secret Circle, but not a huge edge. Bill went the other way, but by the same small margin.
What About Castle?
This year Bill has already bumped Castle up to likely renewal. If there were designations this week, I'd still have it on the bubble. Castle's ratings haven't been great, or even good for ABC. But, they haven't been heinously awful either and, more importantly, there is already an off-net syndication deal in place with TNT. But, there will be over 100 episodes of Castle available by the end of this season (with the extra episode recently ordered for this season I count 105 episodes at the end of the season) and when I look at Castle's current ratings on ABC and its repeat airings on TNT, I see... a toss-up for renewal.
If Nielsen Won't Validate Your Worldview, Who Will?
On Monday after the ratings for the premiere of The Walking Dead came out, I got this e-mail:
From: Raymond Jenkins
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2012 2:54 PM
To: Robert Seidman
Subject: Proof the Nielsen Ratings Are Wrong!Good day. Not that I needed more data to support the premise that Nielsen is a flawed and antiquated system, when I consider the ratings for the horrible, awful The Walking Dead vs. the ratings for the tremendous first rate Last Resort (it's the best show on the air!) there's no other reasonable conclusion than that Nielsen's ratings system is horribly busted. It's not possible that so many more young adults prefer the abomination that is The Walking Dead to the wonderful Last Resort. Andre Braugher rocks!
Sincerely,
Raymond Jenkins
My reply:
From: Robert Seidman
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2012 19:36 PM
To: Raymond Jenkins
Subject: Re: Proof the Nielsen Ratings Are Wrong!But, alas, there are in fact other reasonable conclusions. Here are a few:
- Not only is it possible that more people prefer to watch The Walking Dead than Last Resort, more people actually do!
- You can't stand that many people don't share your taste in television programming and it drives you a little crazy
- Andre Braugher rocks, but zombies rock much harder!
A Quick note on Revolution:
I did want to note that yes, it would certainly have been upgraded to likely renewal had there been designations this week. I was waiting for some signs of stabilization after its first four weeks went: 4.1, 3.4, 3.2, 3.0. A 3.3 adults 18-49 rating for its fifth episode is a good sign.
| Show | Network | Renewal Status |
| Private Practice | ABC | Cancelled/Final Season |
| 666 Park Avenue | ABC | |
| Last Resort | ABC | |
| Scandal | ABC | |
| Neighbors, The | ABC | |
| Castle | ABC | |
| Nashville | ABC | |
| Middle, The | ABC | |
| Revenge | ABC | |
| Grey's Anatomy | ABC | |
| Once Upon A Time | ABC | |
| Modern Family | ABC | |
| Made In Jersey | CBS | Cancelled |
| Partners | CBS | |
| CSI: NY | CBS | |
| Good Wife, The | CBS | |
| Mentalist, The | CBS | |
| Vegas | CBS | |
| Elementary | CBS | |
| CSI | CBS | |
| Criminal Minds | CBS | |
| How I Met Your Mother | CBS | |
| Two and a Half Men | CBS | |
| NCIS | CBS | |
| Hawaii Five-0 | CBS | |
| Blue Bloods | CBS | |
| Person Of Interest | CBS | |
| Mike & Molly | CBS | |
| NCIS: LA | CBS | |
| 2 Broke Girls | CBS | |
| Big Bang Theory, The | CBS | Renewed |
| Gossip Girl | CW | Final Season |
| Hart Of Dixie | CW | |
| 90210 | CW | |
| Nikita | CW | |
| Beauty And The Beast | CW | |
| Arrow | CW | |
| Supernatural | CW | |
| The Vampire Diaries | CW | |
| Fringe | FOX | Final Season |
| Mob Doctor, The | FOX | |
| Ben & Kate | FOX | |
| Mindy Project, The | FOX | |
| Bones | FOX | |
| Raising Hope | FOX | |
| Cleveland Show, The | FOX | |
| Glee | FOX | |
| New Girl | FOX | |
| Bob's Burgers | FOX | Renewed |
| American Dad | FOX | Renewed |
| Family Guy | FOX | Renewed |
| Simpsons, The | FOX | Renewed |
| 30 Rock | NBC | Final Season |
| The Office | NBC | Final Season |
| Next Caller | NBC | Cancelled |
| Animal Practice | NBC | Cancelled |
| Up All Night | NBC | |
| Guys With Kids | NBC | |
| New Normal, The | NBC | |
| Chicago Fire | NBC | |
| Go On | NBC | |
| Law & Order: SVU | NBC | |
| Parks & Recreation | NBC | |
| Revolution | NBC | |
| Parenthood | NBC | |
| Grimm | NBC | |
@Oliver
Crossbones/Dracula/Hannibal are all 10 episode orders. They could put them in the gap left by The Voice
Where are people getting these mid-March start dates for The Voice from? Link?
Also, still in regards to ABC, and looking now at midseason, rather than next year. With PP ending, and with three dramas coming in at midseason, they will need to cut out two other shows. If Scandal gets, as Shonda has been saying that she wants (either it being PR spin or what) just a 13 episode season, that would mean that either Last Resort or 666 will make it to a full season.
@Ultima
No-one knows the premiere date of The Voice, people can only speculate.
Why would they repeat a February start date that was dictated by the Super Bowl? It makes much more sense to either premiere slightly earlier (to compete with Idol) or later (so they can fit some decent programming in the gap).
@Ultima,
The 4th cycle of The Voice will premiere in Spring as well NBC told us right?
Remember early this year that The Voice premiered right after SuperBowl(early Feb.) and finished its run in early May(to be exactly May 8).If to premiere in March then it to end later May or early June as well they premiered its 1st cycle.
Where is Emily Owens, MD on CW? I did watch the pilot, but won’t watch any more of it, was not impressed and only watched because Justin Hartley was in it. Again not impressed.
@ Oliver
If they want to finish the season in May, they will have to start it by mid-February. They could start it in January and extend the season. Then, shows like The Winner Is could be used in the summer.
I think that there are a few shows on ABC that might be a breather just because the network is dealing with the DWTS collapse. I have no doubt that if DWTS returns in the spring it will be in the high 1s, which is far too low to take up so much valuable real-estate. I see it going to 1 cycle next season if it doesn’t move up. Should that happen, it likely means that Castle is safe as ABC probably won’t want to rebuilt the entire Monday night line-up at one time.
@Oliver
Why would they repeat a February start date that was dictated by the Super Bowl?
Because they want it to air during February sweeps and not run into the summer?
The start of February sweeps until the end of May sweeps is 16 weeks. Last season, The Voice ran for 14 weeks and this fall it is running 15 weeks.
If anything, I would think a premiere earlier than 6 February is much more likely than a premiere later than that.
@rehabber
I want to know that myself. Emily Owens aired their show this week. What order will it be on the bubble index?
@Percysowner,
I may be wrong about Revolution but as we’ve seen in past few years 10pm dramas for NBC all flopped.Maybe this season is diferent,maybe don’t.With The Voice as lead-in last season Smash crushed at ratings and premiered well low compared to Revolution.Probably Revolution will emerge as OUAT was last season as n#1 new drama.But until The Voice out,we don’t know.
@Ultima,
How you know that NBC will run The Voice in February sweeps?
@Ultima,
What’s your problem with mid-March start?
you know i watched the first 3 eps.of last resort.an i really wanted to like it.but in the third ep i gave up.an what i found out about the characters was even though AB does indeed rock i found the rest of the cast lacking an i in the end gave up because i just did not care.an if i cant get to that point of caring about the charecters i find watching a waste of time.
@Douglas
How you know that NBC will run The Voice in February sweeps?
Because The Voice is their highest rated show and it boosts the ratings of everything airing with it?
@Douglas
What’s your problem with mid-March start?
They don’t have their #1 show on during February sweeps.
They don’t have their #1 show airing all of its episodes during the broadcast season (it would end during the summer).
@Doug,
I agree 100%
Robert and Bill, still on the first page topic of the site making some sort of prediction on the cable shows, don’t you think that at least on basic cable the metric would be similar? And even if it would’t be as efficient as renew/cancel metrics, where you guys have an almost perfect batting average, don’t you think it would be something that would interest viewers? The aforementioned Suits renew took two months, there is no word yet on Leverage or Hell on wheels. That could make for some interesting topics, even if your batting average would drop a little. Best regards, love the site.
@Ultima,
Even The Voice premieres in February NBC won’t have their #1 show because of American Idol.I don’t see The Voice beating AI in ratings.
@ Douglas from Brazil
Not beating Idol doesn’t stop The Voice from being NBC’s highest rated show…
@Douglas
Even The Voice premieres in February NBC won’t have their #1 show because of American Idol.I don’t see The Voice beating AI in ratings.
???
The Voice is NBC’s #1 show (excluding football, obviously). American Idol has nothing to do with that.