When it comes to bubble status, like the Renew/Cancel Index we're focusing on the likelihood that a show will be renewed **for next season** (2013-14). Certain shows are toss-ups where based on the ratings, the renewal decisions could go either way and not be surprising.
Here, “canceled” is used interchangeably with “won’t be renewed for next season” and is not meant to imply a show will be yanked off the schedule in the current season though obviously the two outcomes are not mutually exclusive. The semantics police and lawyers should feel free to break out the handcuffs and plead their cases in the comments.
This Isn't The Renew/Cancel Index
Though the basic methodology is the same (intra-network relative ranking of shows by adults 18-49 ),unlike the Renew/Cancel Index which predicts what would happen if the season ended now, Bubble Watch prognosticates about what will happen by May. The two are still usually closely aligned, and almost certainly very closely aligned towards the end of the season.
I upgraded The Following back to likely renewal. I know some will complain that it should be a “certain renewal” and the rebound last week was a great sign for its prospects. If the season ended today, of course it would be renewed. But, The Following still has 9 out of its 15 episodes left to air. Know with certainty, that any commenters complaining it should be listed as a certain renewal right now are much more certain about its future prospects than I am!
Normally I hold shows on the bubble when they first premiere, but I moved Cult right to likely cancellation. I have no quarrel with anyone who suggests it should already be a certain cancellation, I’m just giving that another week or two.
Beauty And The Beast Downgraded
I’d been tempted to downgrade Beauty And The Beast for a while. While it had been out-performing it’s “on the bubble peers” similar to last year’s The Secret Circle, I didn’t like Beauty And The Beast’s position relative to the other shows on the bubble due to the fact that it has the best lead-in (The Vampire Diaries) that the CW has to offer. With Beauty And The Beast pulling a 0.5 adults 18-49 rating on Thursday out of the 1.3 adults 18-49 rating The Vampire Diaries drew, even I’m a Retentionista!
NBC
Barring big changes to the ratings, I’m unlikely to move the NBC shows around much before The Voice and Revolution return. The comedies were in a range of 0.9-1.4. And sure, a 1.4 is 56% better than a 0.9, it’s still in a range where (in your best Billy Preston voices) you can sing “56% better than nothing is nothing.”
I still haven’t downgraded either Smash or Deception to certain cancellation, but you can chalk that up to inertia and/or apathy. And sure, Deception outperformed Smash by 33% last week (“33% better than nothing is nothing!”) but Deception had the much better lead-in than Smash. Smash kept 100% of its lead-in, but in this case that isn’t good news.
It might irk Zero Hour fans that last week I moved it immediately to certain cancellation, but this week with similarly woeful ratings I have Body Of Proof on the bubble. But for now, there’s no history of listing Zero Hour as a likely or certain cancellation pretty much all season only to be proved wrong as is the case with Body Of Proof. View at as a one week sign of respect.
Note: only scripted shows that have aired at least one episode this season are in the table below.
| Show | Network | Status |
| 666 Park Avenue | ABC | Canceled |
| Don't Trust The B---- in Apartment 23 | ABC | Canceled |
| Last Resort | ABC | Canceled |
| Made In Jersey | CBS | Canceled |
| Partners | CBS | Canceled |
| Emily Owens, M.D. | CW | Canceled |
| Ben And Kate | Fox | Canceled |
| The Mob Doctor | Fox | Canceled |
| Animal Practice | NBC | Canceled |
| Do No Harm | NBC | Canceled |
| tvbythenumbers.com | ||
| Zero Hour | ABC | Certain Cancellation |
| 1600 Penn | NBC | Certain Cancellation |
| Guys With Kids | NBC | Certain Cancellation |
| Up All Night | NBC | Perhaps already cancelled |
| tvbythenumbers.com | ||
| Happy Endings | ABC | Likely Cancellation |
| CSI: NY | CBS | Likely Cancellation |
| Vegas | CBS | Likely Cancellation |
| 90210 | CW | Likely Cancellation |
| Beauty and the Beast | CW | Likely Cancellation |
| Cult | CW | Likely Cancellation |
| Cleveland Show, The | Fox | Likely Cancellation |
| Touch | Fox | Likely Cancellation |
| Deception | NBC | Likely Cancellation |
| The New Normal | NBC | Likely Cancellation |
| Smash | NBC | Likely Cancellation |
| tvbythenumbers.com | ||
| Body Of Proof | ABC | On The Bubble |
| Last Man Standing | ABC | On The Bubble |
| Malibu Country | ABC | On The Bubble |
| Good Wife, The | CBS | On The Bubble |
| Mentalist, The | CBS | On The Bubble |
| Rules of Engagement | CBS | On The Bubble |
| Carrie Diaries, The | CW | On The Bubble |
| Hart Of Dixie | CW | On The Bubble |
| Community | NBC | On The Bubble |
| Go On | NBC | On The Bubble |
| Whitney | NBC | On The Bubble |
| tvbythenumbers.com | ||
| Castle | ABC | Likely Renewal |
| Neighbors, The | ABC | Likely Renewal |
| Revenge | ABC | Likely Renewal |
| Suburgatory | ABC | Likely Renewal |
| Elementary | CBS | Likely Renewal |
| Hawaii Five-0 | CBS | Likely Renewal |
| Nikita | CW | Likely Renewal |
| Following, The | Fox | Likely Renewal |
| Mindy Project, The | Fox | Likely Renewal |
| Law & Order: SVU | NBC | Likely Renewal |
| Parks & Recreation | NBC | Likely Renewal |
| tvbythenumbers.com | ||
| Grey's Anatomy | ABC | Certain Renewal |
| Middle, The | ABC | Certain Renewal |
| Modern Family | ABC | Certain Renewal |
| Nashville | ABC | Certain Renewal |
| Once Upon A Time | ABC | Certain Renewal |
| Scandal | ABC | Certain Renewal |
| 2 Broke Girls | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| Blue Bloods | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| Criminal Minds | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| CSI | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| Mike & Molly | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| NCIS: Los Angeles | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| Person Of Interest | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| Two and a Half Men | CBS | Certain Renewal |
| Glee | Fox | Certain Renewal |
| New Girl | Fox | Certain Renewal |
| Raising Hope | Fox | Certain Renewal |
| Chicago Fire | NBC | Certain Renewal |
| Grimm | NBC | Certain Renewal |
| Parenthood | NBC | Certain Renewal |
| Revolution | NBC | Certain Renewal |
| tvbythenumbers.com | ||
| Big Bang Theory, The | CBS | Renewed |
| How I Met Your Mother | CBS | Renewed |
| NCIS | CBS | Renewed |
| Arrow | CW | Renewed |
| Supernatural | CW | Renewed |
| Vampire Diaries, The | CW | Renewed |
| American Dad | Fox | Renewed |
| Bob's Burgers | Fox | Renewed |
| Bones | Fox | Renewed |
| Family Guy | Fox | Renewed |
| The Simpsons | Fox | Renewed |
| tvbythenumbers.com | ||
| Private Practice | ABC | Final SeasonFinished |
| Gossip Girl | CW | Final SeasonFinished |
| Fringe | Fox | Final SeasonFinished |
| 30 Rock | NBC | Final Season Finished |
| The Office | NBC | Final Season |
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Beauty & Beast have been wasting the golden slot after TVD – CW should move them wherever and give a chance to Cult. True that slot did not save The Secret Circle last year but why wouldn’t you try if B&B are clearly a wast of space…
omg OUAT is Certain Renewal thanks god i hope it wont drop any further..
Wonder what’s gonna happen with Body of Proof, last year it already “cheated death” and with this season it’ll still only have 42 episodes if I’m not wrong, so that’s still only halfway through syndication…
The New Normal is as good as dead, by the time The Voice comes back, it’ll only have like 4 airings left, so it won’t matter much. Same goes for Go On but they can’t cancel everything…
I think you forgot to add “The Neighbors” on this table..
Nevermind!
I hope TGW will be canceled and CSI: NY is too good to end.
Just thinking out loud….
If I remember correctly the only show to do semi-well after Vampire Diaries was Supernatural. They were paired during SNs 5th season, and if I recall there, SN’s ratings were down compared to the previous year and they weren’t holding as much of VD’s ratings as they should have, and they have been the ONLY show to perform even SEMI-WELL after VD.
Nikkita–not so much
Secret Circle –not so much
Beauty and the Beast –not so much
Now, before someone jumps me and claims that I want SN after VD, I don’t. I’m quite happy with the Arrow/SN pairing.
But it occurred to me after I read this article, that yes, the retention out of VD is ATROCIOUS, but then again, so has everything else they’ve put there. Could it be that none of these shows fit with VD? Could that be some of the problem? Different audience. In a time slot that is KILLER! Thursday at 9 is rough. SN fans have the battle scars to prove it ?
Shrugs. Just wanted to put that out there.
@Red Jane
“Beauty & Beast have been wasting the golden slot after TVD – CW should move them wherever and give a chance to Cult. True that slot did not save The Secret Circle last year but why wouldn’t you try if B&B are clearly a wast of space”
i couldn’t agreed more. B&tB should swap the timeslot with Cult. B&tB have had a chance at Thurs 9/8c timeslot and it failed. why wasting this timeslot to a show that unlikely to survive this season. they should use B&tB timeslot to safe a show that aired in their death slot.
Sometime, i think Tv network exec. are just plain stupid (mainly goes to theCW, NBC and ABC). all 3 of them put their new show in their network daeth slot (CW-EOMD & Cult, NBC-Do No Harm & Hannibal, ABC- Last Resort & Zero Hour) rather than use their strong rating shows to break that timeslot curse!!
Batb
I’m not sure about BaTB being Likely Cancellation if for no other reason than the CW has renewed some shows with really low ratings in the past.
I don’t care either way since I don’t watch anything on CW but the ratings race among it’s shows sure has been interesting to watch.
The only thing that I disagree is Nashville in the certain renewal category.
So basically, the CW bubble race is between Hart of Dixie and The Carrie Diaries?? Cult is dead, Beauty and the Beast has terrible retention, 90210′s only hope is a 13 episode Friday 9 final season, which I doubt is gonna happen.
I would have to list Smash, Touch, and Cult as certain cancellation. Given BOP’s unique tax status, I’d only list it as likely.
I can see given TCD a better chance than BaTB, but I’d still have them both as likely canceled. Maybe just give BaTB its own category, “more likely canceled than TCD”.
I still have trouble listing anything that has yet to return this spring as certain renewal, even though I’m fairly certain Grimm and Revolution will be renewed, they’d still automatically be placed in the likely renewal until after their first spring episodes air.
I’ve had Nashville listed as only likely, however with every passing episode it draws closer to certain renewal. I’m not entirely sure where I would place it this week, but I guess that means I would probably just hold off another week or two before giving it the inevitable upgrade.
Hawaii 5-0 = Certain Renewal
I agree with Beauty and the Beast, is last year’s Secret Circle plain and simple, only its doing worse. It has a great lead in and gets similar numbers to Nikita which has no lead in.
When The CW renews BATB then it’s like a slap directly in the faces of the TSC-Fans.
They cancelled TSC because it couldn’t hold the audience of TVD and was to weak to change the timeslot (and yeah, it was expensive).
But look at BATB, it is doing worse than TSC last year… CW, just cancel it already…
Why not just renew Beauty & The Beast and Put in on Friday 8 then NIKITA ?????
Couldn’t agree more about the retention problem out of the vampire diaries, but what better way to fix retention problem out of a show than to order a spinoff, worked for the ncis’s and could work for the originals, and yes I know their is probably period to the contrary too, but hopefully if it is a good show unlike criminal minds spinoff it well work. And if it doesn’t work, nothing will.
@jonay
Whatever about renewing batb, early this season has proven nikita at friday at 9 won’t work.
I think the New Normal and Whitney will be renewed.
Hart of Dixie is LIKELY RENEWAL