I wonder if the PTC knows Fear Itself is basically the same as Showtime's Master's of Horror which was axed the only difference between the two is Master's of Horror was more graphic w/no commercials where Fear Itself is a slightly edited cut with commercials.

I see your point, and during the regular season you would be right. In a regular (non-strike) season, I can see there being a “CSI-repeat threshold” where if a new show can't do better than CSI/crime show repeats could do in that spot, it gets canceled. There's a limit to that though, especially in summer when there are already a lot of reruns. Unless CBS wants to run 8 hours of CSI like NBC did with L&O, they need something else. If Swingtown can hold the 2.3 demo (which I doubt), CBS will be content: not ecstatic, but not unhappy either.

Also, since their other shows for summer include “Big Brother with dogs” and “Jingles,” it's not like they have a lot of options (though they could give Flashpoint a better timeslot than Fridays at 10).

September 28, 2007 2.5
October 5, 2007 2.2
October 19, 2007 2.1
October 26, 2007 2.4
November 2, 2007 2.1
November 9, 2007 2.5
November 16, 2007 2.7
December 14, 2007 2.1
January 11, 2008 2.3
January 18, 2008 2.3
The other “third” episode of the show was the lowest demo of them all, at #3, and the number seven episodes came in at #2.
So, even at this point, it was clear that the show had won the demographic for almost all first run episodes(and some of the reruns actually did no worse than second)except for 2. Still, that wasn't good enough for CBS

As for the last four, I think that CBS did the show a disservice for not lowering their expectations in light of the tv viewing environment.
Here is an excerpt from an MSNBC article, dated May 11, 2005, just al little under a month ago.
“As the final weeks of the 2007/2008 television season unfold, one theme keeps reappearing in news reports: We’re watching less TV.
While some shows have had increased ratings, most have suffered from lower ratings compared to last fall. Now, “American Idol” makes headlines not because of performances, but because fewer people, especially in key demographics, are watching than before.”

Here is another article from the NYT last fall that mentions Moonlight. Notice that the other two shows mentioned did receive renewals.
” In November, the three programs to raise ratings among 18- to 49-year-olds were the CBS vampire drama “Moonlight” (up 9 percent), the CW’s New York fantasy “Gossip Girl” (up 8 percent) and the CBS comedy “The Big Bang Theory” (up 6 percent).
it can be argued fairly that Moonlight did not have high viewer numbers or high demographics. However, it kept a consistent numbers in its audience, even after it was pre-empted during the holidays, which is not unusual, of course, and also in the spring. Its interesting that in most cases, it doesn't matter if you win by several lengths or in a photo finish, if you beat every one else, it doesn't matter by how much. Very few people, in any circumstance, expect to win a race or anything else by a blowout. So, Moonlight didn't blow out its competition, but it still got the demo, which is supposed to be what the networks want.

I did some research on another CBS show that is now considered to be a successful show on CBS, since it gets about 15 or so million viewers, and even at that is is said that it tends to skew “old” but I guess with that many viewers CBS feels that is is worth it. The show is NCIS, and when it debuted back in September of 2003 it got somewhere around 9 miillion viewers, and was conisdered to be marginal in its viewers at the time. However, it got the chance to grow. Sadly, Moonlight did not.

To be fair to this new show, it has a very high bar set for it, as did Moonlight, unfortunately, CBS seems to almost have a phobia about that timeslot. Yes, in retrosepct Close to Home should not have been cancelled, but it was. Now Moonlight has been, also. If CBS doesn't get more realistic expectations out of that timeslot, then the “Ex-List” is statistically bound for failure. Not because of irate Moonlight fans, but because, if CBS expects it to do better than Close to Home in both viewers and demographics it is going to have to get at least 10 million viewers and be in that upper 2 point something range for the demo, and that is a tall order

If I recall correctly, the STD numbers provided by Nielsen's include all in-slot reruns. Especially with the strike, that makes a huge difference in the season average. There were only a few shows (Kid Nation, Cane, Shark, the Friday shows) that got below a 2.5 in the demo for a new show more than once or twice.

That said, 2.3 is still decent for a summer show.

To get the facts straight, there were 34 CBS shows tracked for the 2007-8 regular season, and a 2.3 rating for adults 18-49 would have put a show at #17 for CBS.

We stopped getting individual show 18-49 final numbers from Nielsen in January, but we still do get season to date numbers. Jericho did a 2.0 18-49 rating for its 7 show run. Moonlight did a 2.0 18-49 rating as well during its 22 episode run.

I stand by my comment. A 2.3 rating for 18-49 for CBS for the summer is decent.

Fear Itself will probably get axed rather soon following the Masters of Science Fiction into the dumpster. Anthology shows rarely do well on network TV – the last decent one was the syndicated 90s version of the Outer Limits which went on for years.