Comments on: Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, Dirty Sexy Money, Lipstick Jungle Are Final Mid-Season Casualties

By: JimmyRotten

JimmyRotten — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:49:00 +0000

To save Eli Stone, sign the petition:

http://tvseriesfinale.com/articles/eli-stone-petition-to-save-the-cancelled-abc-tv-show/

By: Eddie

Eddie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:42:06 +0000

I could not see both The Game and Everybody Hates Chris being cancelled. I think it would cause a huge backlash because it would leave no African-American shows on Broadcast TV. But you may have a point, they probably stuck it on Friday nights to fail…..

By: Ken A

Ken A — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:01:47 +0000

The only ABC show my family watchs is Eli Stone. ABC changed the format around and got rid of most of the musical visions, so it’s not as good as it was the first season, but we’ll still be sad to see it go.

By: Nick C

Nick C — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:23:50 +0000

I think PRIVILEGED will be canceled to make room for one of the midseason shows if it doesn’t do better behind GG.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:27:37 +0000

marenamoo, there may very well be other factors that cause a show to be cancelled, particularly internal economic ones that we have no idea about.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:24:49 +0000

Fin, the TAMI is pretty much used for NBC PR purposes only. The reality is that the other things that it counts, besides the TV viewership that we report, amounts to almost no money at this point compared to traditional TV advertising, so it’s likely to have little bearing on show futures.

By: Fin

Fin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:54:35 +0000

Robert the new TAMI system for NBC shows that ‘Heroes’ (http://heroeswiki.com/TAMi#Season_Three_.28as_of_11.2F25.2F08.29) has 16.54 million average veiwers this season: which is awesome. But if this applies to Heroes and reportly 10 other NBC shows: then does this mean that for NBC shows the 18-49 index will have less relevance in terms of cancellations?

By: marenamoo

marenamoo — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:40:39 +0000

My question is a what do you do with CBS after you analyze indexes and trends. Except for two comedies, The Unit (which is actually pretty stable on Sundays but still in danger) and the already canceled Ex-List, what do they have left to cancel? Do you make a numeric presumption that a network will want to bring in a certain percentage of fresh ideas. I would think that some renewal likely cancellations would occur (although I hate the idea of a NCIS spin-off, that show is about the characters not the premise). Does that question move beyond the numbers which you provide and move more into the realm of speculation or is there another level of analysis that would help. Cost of production, age of product?

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:51:30 +0000

Ben, indeed, it would have been better for me to have written “once successful” or “marginally successful” instead of “successful”.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:47:24 +0000

But then again, if the show was successful, the broadcast networks would be reluctant to let the show go.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:21:25 +0000

Mo, it’s not impossible the way say, the Detroit Lions winning the Super Bowl is, but cable networks that decide to buy new episodes of a broadcast show (like USA and Law & Order:CI, for example) typically do it with *successful* shows which Eli Stone was not.

By: Mo

Mo — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:16:47 +0000

Is there anyway to get eli stone on a cable network, USA, TNT, etc? Just wondering if they ever pickup shows and what can the fans of eli stone do. Thank you for any feedback!

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:16:46 +0000

Johnthemon, read the commentary.

By: Johnthemon

Johnthemon — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:15:58 +0000

why are “Without a Trace” and “Cold Case” in the green? They’re below the line shouldn’t they be orange?

I hope Chuck gets up to a 1.0 by the end of the season. 0.97 is kind of pathetic.

By: josh

josh — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:44:28 +0000

Any chance LIFE might get a JAG change and get another network to pick up it with some real advertising?

By: cjhtwo

cjhtwo — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:37:50 +0000

I watch 30% of the shows that have been cancelled! And if Crusoe falls off the bubble, that brings it up to 40%! I guess I’ll have a less complicated schedule for my VCR’s, but I will have lost a lot.

By: dirtysexyj

dirtysexyj — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:07:58 +0000

61% accuracy. bah

By: DaisiesDeathKnell

DaisiesDeathKnell — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:23:38 +0000

Good point. I actually did think up the 100 episode business and the fact that Chris is the sort of series that would play well in re-runs…I guess if there’s enough incentive and the networks is only losing a minor amount by producing each new episode…

By: Janelle

Janelle — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:15:50 +0000

Riff Rafferty, you are such a woman hater! Obviously you’ve some issues!
Don’t forget to watch Lipstick Jungle on Dec 5th at 9pm!

By: Riff Rafferty

Riff Rafferty — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:55:31 +0000

Ignore the ratings of “Everybody Hates Chris.” The CW has financial incentive to produce a fifth season of it — even if it’s just 13 episodes. They (CBS Paramount) own the show outright and it has a good off-net deal (local affiliates and Nick at Nite) in Fall ‘09. And since somebody else mentioned “Bernie Mac,” which was also moved to Friday in its fourth season, well, there you go. They were renewed for a fifth. Because FOX owned the show and wanted 100 episodes. It’s just not common or sensible for a network who has full ownership of a comedy to shitcan it right before it launches an off-net run. Of course Steve McPherson did just that with “My Wife and Kids,” but he’s senseless, so that makes sense.

P.S. Is there a place we can lock up all the “LIPSTICK JUNGLE ISN’T CANCELLED!” crowd so we never have to hear that again?

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:03:58 +0000

Tom, one thing I learned this fall is that that veteran shows, no matter how badly they’re doing are very unlikely to be cancelled at mid-season. Knowing that in advance I never for a moment would have predicted that EHC or Christine would go down in mid-season.

MOWE is also “Silverman-era NBC” and was given the death sentence after 4 episodes. I don’t think we can draw too many conclusions based on those 3 very different data points.

I have not seen CW’s schedule, but I doubt Privileged gets canned before the end of the season, and maybe not then.

You’re right, the lack of LJ in NBC’s Jan schedule proves nothing. The fact that it’s NBC’s lowest regular (non-mini series) 18-49 demo rated scripted show proves that it’s dead.

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:08:52 +0000

**Tom** Sorry for the extra e

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:08:18 +0000

Tome, CBS did order more episodes for Gary Unmarried (I think it was 7 episodes and 2 more scripts). They also ordered 4 more episodes of Worst Week. I think Privileged might have gotten a full season as well, but I’m not sure. No word on Eleventh Hour.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:55:55 +0000

In regards to your false positives:
EHC films their order very early on; last year they had their entire order done by the time the WGA strike kicked in. There is simply no economic point in a “mid-season” cancellation of a show with two episodes left to film.

Life & KR need a steroids-like asterisk next to them, with a footnote that reads “Silverman-era NBC”.

Regarding WW/GU/Eleventh Hour/Privileged, have CBS/CW actually announced their Spring schedules yet / have we heard from the showrunners that they are getting full season orders? I haven’t seen any sign that their fates are actually known yet.

And as much as I hate giving them hope, LJ not appearing on NBC’s January-only schedule proves nothing: Neither do Heroes/Life/Chuck/Kings/Apprentice, yet we all know they will be aired in 2009 (even if we all know LJ is in fact cancelled).

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:33:32 +0000

While I’m not surprised that there was some sensitivity I think the point of it is this: THE INDEX WORKS! It’s not 100% perfect (no method will be 100%!), but it’s a very good and very useful tool for predicting.

If it had turned out it wasn’t, I’m sure Bill would have given the index a bad grade in public, and gone back to the drawing board.