With the report that Reaper’s producers will be leaving the show, most assume that it’s a goner at the end of the season. Others say that it’s not that big a deal, and might just be a chance for a new start for the show. On the ratings front, the show refuses to give up the ghost, its demo ratings continue to improve (although, so did the CW 18-49 average) week to week. With the news about the producers the show’s got to be placed on the endangered list. And because of a lack of producers, I think its chance of returning is low, but it’s not zero.
This week there was a report that producers will pitch the potential for The Game to become a one hour dramedy. If the alternative is dramedy or doom it seems like the future prospects for the show are slim, but not none. No such option is open for Everybody Hates Chris. Its run looks to be over. Privileged’s ratings were just terrible it’s not going to be coming back.
This is a breakdown of CW scripted shows and their renewal and cancelation prospects. Here are the others:
Our Renew / Cancel index predicts potential renewal for *next* season: Canceled/Not Returning, In Danger, or Renewal Likely for 2009-10, Renewal Announced.
| PROGRAM | Net | STD 18-49 (LIVE+SD) (000) | Network Avg. STD 18-49 | Renew/ Cancel index | Status |
| EASY MONEY | CW | 288 | 1,040 | 0.28 | |
| VALENTINE | CW | 345 | 1,040 | 0.33 | |
| EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS | CW | 815 | 1,040 | 0.78 | |
| GAME, THE | CW | 911 | 1,040 | 0.88 | |
| PRIVILEGED | CW | 918 | 1,040 | 0.88 | |
| REAPER | CW | 1,230 | 1,040 | 1.18 | |
| 90210 | CW | 1,429 | 1,040 | 1.37 | renewed |
| ONE TREE HILL | CW | 1,539 | 1,040 | 1.48 | renewed |
| GOSSIP GIRL | CW | 1,549 | 1,040 | 1.49 | renewed |
| SUPERNATURAL | CW | 1,575 | 1,040 | 1.51 | renewed |
| SMALLVILLE | CW | 1,858 | 1,040 | 1.79 | renewed |
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Notes:
Friday night – Friday is quickly becoming an 18-49 wasteland, so these shows may be allowed a lower threshold for success than shows on other nights.
The Renew/Cancel Index is a show’s Season To Date adults 18-49 viewership divided by its networks Season to Date average 18-49 viewership.
How did we come up with our Index? We found that last season, the future of a show was nearly directly related to its adults 18-49 average viewers divided by its networks 18-49 average viewers. Many other factors may matter, but they all seemed to boil down to that one number. Because American Idol so skewed Fox’s 18-49 average, and would make nearly all Fox shows fall into the “cancel” range, for Fox, I used the last STD 18-49 average *before* Idol. Last season, if a show had better than 92% of its network’s average 18-49 viewership (0.92 in our index) it was pretty safe, below that level it was in danger.
Remember that plenty can change before the end of the season, particularly for the shows with indexes between 0.80 and last season’s renewal line of 0.92. The list is presented in a (and has to be, since I cannot predict future ratings) “what would happen if the season ended today” mode. Could the renewal line be 0.86 this season? Possibly. It might also be 0.95. Might it be 0.70? No chance.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All viewership numbers are Live+SD.
Its sad to say that I believe that Reaper will be ending this season. Its doing good but it just seems that The CW doesn’t care about it anymore. The same is said for Everybody Hates Chris and The Game. While it could go either way with these 2 it looks like Chris will be gone and The Game may have a chance. If those to comedies end then it will also mark the end of UPN sitcoms as well as black sitcoms as well.
come on Reaper!!!
the cw needs more than tramps and boy toys on their network, if not the network itself will fear the reaper soon as the network will be gone in a year…
Reaper code orange
, it needs to turn green
Well I have been saying for this entire year that The Game should be an hour. It’s already been a dramedy since the end of season 1 and it already has no studio audience and is shot single camera. The show is exactly like 90210 and other CW shows, I guess the only the difference is the mainly minority ensemble cast, but I won’t even go there. The way the CW has been treating this show, I have to agree with Bill, I think the chances of survival is getting slimmer and slimmer by the week. But once again I have to say I definitely expected this after the disrespectful way Girlfriends was ended and cancelled after 8 seasons.
I’ve known for a while that Everybody Hate’s Chris is ending.
I don’t know about The Game being an hour dramedy, Who knows though it just might work.
I see 90210 ending after next season since the new producer wants to make Season 2 more Gossip Girl-y and that she doesn’t want any of the Original Beverly Hills 90210ers on. I for one will not be watching 90210 after this season if there are no originals on next season. I expect a big big rating dip next season due to there being no original 90210ers there.
Rumors are running around that 3 big shows will be ending next year. One Tree Hill, Supernatural and Smallville. I can see Supernatural going for another 2 seasons but the showrunner and producers of Supernatural did say the show was 5 Season plan. The CW will be lucky if they can squeeze a Season 10 out of Smallville if they can. One Tree Hill might be ending after Season 7 because everyone wants to move on, but who knows maybe the CW will offer the cast big money.
The CW better hope they have a big hit next season if they might be getting rid of these shows. I can see Vampire Diaries being the next Buffy/Angel. I can see Lily being bigger than Gossip Girl because of the cast that is lined up. Melrose Place not sure about that one.
My CW 2009-2010 Schedule:
Sunday
Reaper
Vampire Diaries (who knows this day might actually work together)
Monday
Gossip Girl
One Tree Hill
Tuesday
Melrose Place
90210
Wednesday
America’s Next Top Model
Lily
Thursday
Smallville
Supernatural
Friday
The Game (1 Hour)
Office Politics
reaper is good!! at least it’s funny!! ray wise is phenominal!! socks is so out there!!1 it ’s just good comedy!!
It looks like I’m saying so long to CW! Everybody Hates Chris is the only show I watch on CW. It is absolutely horrible what CW has done to what is easily one of the greatest sitcoms ever. It’s a lot like how Fox treated The Bernie Mac Show, only I think the treatment of EHC is even more heinous. (Although at least we have three seasons of EHC on DVD, as opposed to only one season of Bernie Mac.)
BTW, does anyone know if EHC has filmed any fifth season episodes already? I would think that with the show being so close to 100 episodes, CW would at least give the series 13 episodes for a fifth season (for 101 total), as the show has the potential to do well in syndication.
The EW reported that the creator of supernatural does not want to come back after the next season and the stars don’t seem that interested either because they shoot in the middle of nowhere. So I really wish that the CW would look towards the future and groom this show to air on Thursdays. Smallville is not gonna last forever either. This show should be on Thursdays during the smallville/supernatural repeats. It is doing well opposite american idol and even does better than 90210 and gossip girl — so CW please save this show!
since it’s produced by abc studios, maybe they will pick it up, just like they did scrubs.
I could see a renewal scenario for ‘Reaper’ where it gets additional seasons in exchange for ABC Studios selling an ownership position in the show to either Warner Television or CBS-Paramount.
Without the incentive of participation in the back-end profits of the show, I’m not sure that ‘Reaper’s’ numbers are high enough to earn sufficient ad revenues to offset the licensing costs.
In a three-way between renewing one of ‘Reaper’, ‘Privileged’ or ‘The Game’, I see advantage going to ‘Reaper’ at this point. But based on The CW’s development pipeline, I could also see them jettisoning all three shows.
If The CW cancels, I think ABC Family is the best prospect for a post-cancel pick-up…they’ve shown a number of comedy series starring Mr. Bret Harrison, and he fits like a glove within their brand.
I frankly would be disappointed and somewhat turned off if 90210 did away with original cast members and went to a Gossip Girl lineup. I’m a huge fan of the original though so perhaps I’m in the minority of the current viewership.
Brian D, I think you’re in the majority. 90210 at one point was being watched by over 5M viewers and now barely pulls 2M viewers. It was a “could have been,” hit. There was definitely a market for it. The show itself obviously turned off those people who wanted it.
It’s a failure, and being renewed is just bad business.
Nick C, that’s just not true.
90210 attracted some people who seen the original and wanted to see the how the new version was. They never wanted to follow it, just see how it was. And may I add that the old characters only bring down the quality of the show? I stopped watching because it sucks and not because the old characters stop appearing or something.
All I know is, The CW better HEAVILY weigh whether it’s wise to dump Reaper, a show that no one speaks poorly of, is the funniest show on the network (and don’t underestimate people’s desire to laugh!), is in the same genre as the #1 buzzed-about Supernatural, and still has a lot of life and mythology potential ahead. Whereas, as was pointed out, OTH, SV & SN could all be gone after next season.
I think it’s time, too, to consider the Smallville spinoff options.
what concerns me more about Reaper than the producers leaving was a picture of Tyler Labine on a bicycle from an article talking about how many sitcom pilots there are for next year. I don’t believe that the article labeled the picture or specifically talked about Labine, but if the actors are working on other shows/pilots, that’s never a good sign. Reaper needs the whole Scooby Gang — it’s about Sam, but Soc is a pretty strong element to lose to another show.
I really think CW is going to drop Reaper now. Its the kind of show that does well and the network doesn’t have a specific reason for ending it. Everybody Hates Chris will have 88 episodes after this season, the good amount for syndication, and it will be also airing on Nick at Nite next year. So I figure that if they drop Chris and keep The Game for next year, since CW doesn’t want any more comedies, they may want to develop the game into an hour dramedy and drop the laugh track. They will probably keep it on Friday nights and hopefully ratings will improve.
Every time I think about Reaper, I forget how much I enjoy it until I’m watching it. I’d be truly sad to see it go – it’s sorta my Chuck back-up plan. If both get canceled (which is possible although not probable), I don’t know where I’ll get my lovable-dramady fix from.
Everything is merging into cop dramas and law nonsense…hopefully the CW will have the gall to keep its one claim to be proud of – creativity.
After all, SPN is meant to be over after the 5th season. What then?
“Every time I think about Reaper, I forget how much I enjoy it until I’m watching it. ”
I agree. I was completely lacking life last night with all the talk about it being cancelled after this season until I saw it again last night. I think Warner Bros. are upset about merging w/ CBS. They probably thought I would make for good business, but goes to show that UPN *does* bring death, but death won’t come.
It’s obvious the two heads have lost a lot of perspective of “good” television and great business decisions.
I remember reading about Reba (while in it’s 5th season on WB) being picked up for an additional two seasons. But when they formed the CW, it wasn’t being brought back. Somehow it got picked up for 13 eps before being abruptly cancelled (and still being it’s highest rated comedy). And I heard they had to pay $20mil for the cancellation. That’s why Sunday nights suck so much.
So for me, being that I want to get into the television business, I’m gonna have to grow thicker skin and learn how to accept things where it hurts.
First of all…I’ve known this for months, but I’ll finally say it. Why the hell did 90210 even get picked up? At best it’s ratings are mediocre. Yes, Gossip Girl has similar ratings, but Gossip Girl is a much better written show with better actors than 90210, and has become a pop culture phenomenam. Not to mention the Lily Spinoff could potentially do better than Gossip Girl, given the cast, and adult’s nostalgia of the 80’s. So once again, I ask? Why pick up the crapfest that is 90210.
Supernatural and Smallville were no brainers. They’re both having one of their best seasons, and are the highest rated shows on the network.
As for One Tree Hill…If Chad and Hilarie aren’t there, I’m not, and so will 50 percent of it’s fanbase.
Ricardo, it is true. The show had 5M viewers at one point. An extremely high number for the CW, massive in fact. They tuned in because of the old 90210. There was a market for a new 90210. The fact that there are now only 2M people watching means the show FAILED. It failed to appeal to the market’s demand.
I didn’t say why, because I don’t know why. I haven’t watched an episode.
Alexander, it’s about growth. The CW has to grow to become profitable. It needs about a 50% growth. The network has only one show that is growing: SUPERNATURAL. SMALLVILLE isn’t pulling better numbers than previous seasons. The show is just better than all the other shows on the CW in ratings despite being down.
If someone made a renewal/cancel Index that only started on the last week of October the story would be very different in numbers. SUPERNATURAL and SMALLVILLE would be way ahead. Remember SUPERNATURAL was .35 behind or so on the index of GOSSIP GIRL at one point. It is now ahead by .02. That makes people think that GOSSIP GIRL, ONE TREE HILL, and 90210 are holding their own, when in fact they aren’t.
There is no reason for a 90210 renewal. In fact it’s bad business. VERONICA MARS got better numbers and they canceled that show. They need to go ahead and cancel 90210, the spinoffs, etc. They need to make the CW a network for everyone and not just teen girls. In fact their best shows kind of spit in the face of the network.
The CW needs shows that have growth potential. The big 3 for the target demo don’t have it. In fact they’ve shown a trend that is the opposite. So the CW needs to replace them.
That would be the smart thing.
My CW Schedule for the next Season 2009/10
Sunday
Vampire Diaries
Melrose Place
Monday
Gossip Girl
One Tree Hill
Tuesday
The Beautiful Life (with Mischa Barton)
90210
Wednesday
America’s Next Top Model
Lily
Thursday
Smallville
Supernatural
Friday
Reaper
The Game (One Hour)
I should have known that the black shows would be the first to go. I would bet the farm that both “Everybody hates chris and the game will not even get so much as a bye, see ya, just like girlfriends and other minority shows in the past that dogged everyone out who did tune into those shows, as well as interviews from stars of certain black shows that they were notified from the paper that their show was canceled!!! White shows always get the countdown and the ticker-tape parade to their series finales but minority shows, not a chance!! Looks like you know what is alive and well as usual!!!!!!!
you make the game an hour and it should not be canceled. this is the only show that minorities can watch and relate to. all the other shows are white based. the cw show used to be all black shows and now replacing them with mostly white shows. that is not fair. keep the show rolling cuz i love the show “the game.”