Despite being in an ideal premiere timeslot, the animated newcomer Sit Down, Shut Up had ratings slightly below what seems necessary for renewal. Any ratings slippage at all in future episodes and the show is likely to be canceled.
It’s all over but the shouting for Dollhouse. Even the shouting’s done for Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Starting this week, instead of using the 18-49 viewership for the calculations, I’m going to instead use the 18-49 rating, which simply is the percentage of the US 18-49 TV adults population. (There are an estimated 132 million US adults 18-49 in TV households, so a 1.0 rating is equal to 1.32 million adults 18-49). Since we only get 18-49 demo ratings for each show on an overnight basis, that makes the values in the Renew/Cancel Index easier to compare with the overnight demo ratings results.
This is a breakdown of Fox 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 Rating (LIVE+SD) | Network Avg. STD 18-49 rating | Renew/ Cancel index | Status |
| TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES (FRI) | FOX | 1.25 | 2.7 | 0.46 | |
| DO NOT DISTURB | FOX | 1.6 | 2.7 | 0.59 | canceled |
| DOLLHOUSE | FOX | 1.6 | 2.7 | 0.59 | |
| TIL DEATH | FOX | 1.8 | 2.7 | 0.67 | returning |
| PRISON BREAK | FOX | 2.2 | 2.7 | 0.81 | final season |
| SIT DOWN, SHUT UP | FOX | 2.3 | 2.7 | 0.85 | |
| KING OF THE HILL | FOX | 2.8 | 2.7 | 1.04 | final season |
| AMERICAN DAD | FOX | 2.8 | 2.7 | 1.04 | returning |
| BONES | FOX | 3.0 | 2.7 | 1.11 | |
| SIMPSONS | FOX | 3.1 | 2.7 | 1.15 | returning |
| FRINGE | FOX | 3.5 | 2.7 | 1.30 | |
| FAMILY GUY | FOX | 3.5 | 2.7 | 1.30 | |
| LIE TO ME | FOX | 3.7 | 2.7 | 1.37 | |
| 24 | FOX | 3.8 | 2.7 | 1.41 | returning |
| HOUSE | FOX | 4.7 | 2.7 | 1.74 |
-
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. Note that the Fox average used above is its final Season to Date average prior to American Idol (see below).
Notes:
Prison Break is in its final season.
‘Til Death has done terribly, and has been off Fox’s schedule since October, Sony Pictures has reportedly made Fox such a sweet deal for future episodes that Fox has bought another entire season, proving that at a low enough price that even a ratings black hole is worth suffering through.
Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles: The numbers above are for only its Friday airings that began on February 13, 2009. FYI, It’s 13 episode 18-49 average on Monday this season was 2.726 million.
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.
Considering the new format, maybe you want to change TSCC’s Monday average to its rating rather than viewers?
It’s really amazing how big a difference there is between House and everything else on FOX.
TSSCS average should be 1.3 not 1.2
Yeah, I’m as resigned to the cancellation of Dollhouse as I am to TSCC at this point.
At least I conclude, as opposed to TSCC, that the problem with Dollhouse was the focus on the wrong character (Echo) as opposed to the FBI agent Ballard who had a consistent characterization. That isn’t entirely different than TSCC’s focus problem, but Dollhouse wasn’t as egregious about it. At least Echo’s lack of characterization was in fact part of the premise. You couldn’t mess with her characterization like TSCC did with Sarah Connor because Echo really didn’t have a “character” to mess with.
The other problem might be simply that the premise was a bit hard to grasp for some people who weren’t prone to being intrigued by it as I was.
Another issue was that there wasn’t enough indication early on that the series had a bigger mythology than just the basic premise of a company renting out scrubbed people. You had to watch all the episodes and follow the dialog closely to realize that.
In fact, I think that was THE big problem with the show – the first five episodes seemed to be more formulaic than expansive. And this is a show that would not survive on “formula”. It needed to be more serial in the first five episodes than it was.
Even so, I think this might be one of those shows where somebody might reasonably proclaim that it had no “mainstream appeal”, whatever that actually means.
Probably the fact that I liked it pretty much proves that! LOL!
hagi, fair enough, had things shaved to 1 significant digit. Not that it will matter!
1.653 million / 1.32 = 1.252 rating
@Richard
I agree. I guess they gambled with the first five episodes, hoping to catch some unsuspecting males with Dushku and present them a ’simple’ show they can easily get hooked on before changing into full gear. Well — it didn’t work out.
A further thought on what constitutes “mainstream appeal”. I think it has to do with whether once someone hears the premise of a show, they immediately have SOME idea where the show could go and whether that fits their world-view or piques their interest based on their own interests.
Take TSCC: Everybody knows what Terminator is. So the premise is known and is easily grasped by anybody. They immediate think, “OK, killer robots chasing a kid and his mother while they try to stop the end of the world. Oh, and there’s a hot female ‘good Terminator’ so obviously the kid and her get it on by end of the series.” Not hard to follow and promises sci-fi action/adventure (which it ended up failing to deliver consistently) and some titillating “will they/won’t they” (however creepy some people thought that idea was).
Easy premise, bad execution – canceled.
Now think about the Dollhouse premise: “A company sells people with reprogrammed personalities for various reasons.” It’s a lot harder to immediately imagine where that could go if you haven’t thought about such things – which obviously most people never have since they’re not Transhumanist wackos like me – and you don’t know Joss Whedon’s rep for going in odd directions in his past shows. So rather than think about it, you blow it off.
Hard premise, uneven execution – canceled.
Take Leverage: Bunch of criminals get together to run cons on corrupt corporations and individuals. Very easy to grasp. Obvious what to expect. So all that matters is are the characters engaging and the execution decent – which it was. End result: second season green lighted.
I think that’s all “mainstream appeal” is: most people can understand the premise without thinking about it too hard and it does it not weird them out or make it seem to hard to follow.
After that, it’s all execution.
Evil, I think you’re right. They REALLY over-emphasized the babe content of the show in the first several episodes, even though by shifting from “hot babe” to “babe wearing glasses” in episode one, they tried to make it seem like it wasn’t all about that.
The episode with the singer was the worst in that regard. First, the concept of “bodyguard who doesn’t know she’s a bodyguard” was a bit out there. Second, that whole episode was babes in skimpy outfits. Fine by me, but possibly boring to anybody who wants a more intriguing plot. Third, the acting was pretty bad in that one. It and the episode with the religious cult were the two episodes I really didn’t like much. And it’s no surprise those two stories didn’t go far in moving the overall mythology and story arc along either.
As some people have suggested, they should have made episode six the pilot episode.
They also slowed down in episodes seven and eight. Six and nine were their best episodes. But by then it was too late. I think the show died by episode six or even earlier – or even before it was aired because of the problem of the premise I indicated above: no “mainstream appeal”.
@Richard
However how do you think that Lost fits into that? While the premise might seem easy at first, that definitely changed with the later seasons and even though (at least in my opinion) the execution stayed on the same level, it definitely got more and more complicated and therefore hard to follow. So basically, Lost actually shouldn’t have any mainstream appeal.
Evil, I think the story with LOST is that it started out with mainstream appeal and gathered a following. By the time it got complicated, enough people were wrapped up in the show that it was able to hang on to a good sized audience, though it has lost a huge percentage from the first few seasons.
Wow….guys from Firefly with shows are in danger of being canceled. Again. At the same time.
List:
Summer Glau: TSCC = dead
Nathan Fillion: Castle = 50/50
Adam Baldwin: Chuck = 50/50
Joss Whedon: Dollhouse = almost certain not coming back
Talk about bad luck…..
P.S
And note Gina Torres guess stint on the following shows: “Pushing Daisies”, “Dirty Sexy Money” , “Eli Stone” “Boston Legal”….
Uh oh. That doesn’t bode well for V. Alan Tudyk is in the pilot.
I agree with Julia. I never watched Lost but my impression of the initial premise was basically a “weird Gilligan’s Island”. That’s sort of easy to grasp. But then they went wild on it, apparently.
I’m still not sure what the premise of “Heroes” is other than: kids with superpowers – X-Men without the uniforms (“Mutant X” interested me but then they had the “X” in there, which got them sued if I remember correctly). But just from that I can kinda grasp it and either get interested or not. The only reason I’m not that interested now is that I’d have a lot of catching up to do at this point. But I might look into it at some point. I mean, it DOES have Hayden Panettiere!
Alexis: Yeah, the Firefly cast needs to go back and make MORE FIREFLY!
How’s Jewel Staite doing on Stargate?
If u use single digit after decimal point, rounding must be proper, 1.25 rounds to 1.3… For its Monday numbers: 2.726 m/1.32=2.06=2.1
Hagi, it’s not coming back whether there are two significant digits or 20, but I agree it would’ve been simpler for Bill to just put it at 1.3 and leave it at that
About Fringe… didn’t I read an interview somewhere with some of the Fringe cast saying that they’d started filming Season 2 already? If that’s not an indicator of renewal, I don’t know what is?
I think V will have worse problems than Alan. I never got into that show back when the original aired. I doubt they can do better this time. Still Battlestar apparently did. But the new Battlestar, even the old Battlestar, had a better premise than V ever did.
V premise: “Nice” aliens turn out to be rotters.
That’s a “duh” premise!
i noticed Gina Torres was in all the ABC early cancellations but the currently records for show / ratings killing goes to Rena Sofa she adds Dirty Sexy Money to her endless list that impressively includes even bringing down Heroes and 24
Kirk Acevedo (aka Charlie Francis) apparently confirmed in an interview that he was shooting a stand alone episode for season 2. He also mentioned a “coming war” – which means there definitely will be more going on in season 2 to further the overall concept.
The numbers say Fringe will be back, there just hasn’t been any official announcement – which is why Bill has it in green!
So did the latest Fringe episode satisfied you, RSH? Lol
I think the real problem is that the moment you put an intelligent show on in america most of the populace doesn’t understand it and stops watching. Granted that makes it so everyone else has to suffer from terrible television with hilariously simple premises and extremely predictable plot lines. That and reality TV. Why must reality TV exist? Can’t someone make reality TV go away?
Alexis, actually, yes. Although it didn’t do a damn thing for moving the overall story arc along, it was pretty good in my view for a straight up monster story. I thought the monster was cool even though I thought it a stretch for a transgenic experiment – sucker was a little BIG for being a gila monster mixed with a bat! LOL!
But then the episode with the guy changing into a weird monster on the plane was a bit of a stretch, too. But this show relies on such stretches, it’s all good clean fun, as it were. The important thing is the overall story arc, the pacing and the characters, all of which is good stuff.
But having TWO such shows in a row not moving the story arc along is not good.
They better not ignore that guy changing into…something and smashing his way out of the hospital for another episode – that just makes no sense at all. That’s the same mistake TSCC made when it came back from hiatus – three painfully slow, irrelevant episodes that only emphasized how stupid the “heroes” were being made to look.
Fringe and LTM both look safe on the index. I hope LTM creeps up a tick or two tonight; they are promoting it with more personal story angles.
TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, DOLLHOUSE and SIT DOWN, SHUT UP will not come back.
Also regarding Fringe, during the ending to last night’s episode where Walter is watching the old VHS tape of his experiments. Wasn’t it awesome to hear Leonard Nimoy’s voice as William Bell and know the rumour from a few weeks ago is definitely true?!
Second season of Fringe, yay!
Another problem with Dollhouse is that Whedon tried to make Adelle and Topher sympathetic and then we learn that Sierra was forced into the Dollhouse and is essentially being raped. Does anyone want to watch a show about sympathetic rapists?
I simply can’t believe that Til Death is renewed again. Man, 6′8″ Brad Garrett must either totally intimidate the suits at Fox or he really has something on Rupert Murdoch. His show is not funny at all, he is plain ass obnoxious as hell, and the ratings suck to boot.
Can anyone tell me any other reasons why this show is still on or for that matter, how it survived being cancelled in its first season? Unbelievable
J. Norman, Sony (Til Death’s producer) made Fox some ridiculously good deal to get enough episodes for syndication.
Bill,
Yes, I read your article above and saw that you mentioned that.
Thanks
P.S. I really doubt that Til Death will find an audience in syndication either!!
It simply is a bad show.
I think if Sit Down comes back it will be along with King of the Hill in the 7 or 7:30 hour and even then just to fill the schedule so it would be void of repeats. Like this
7:00 King of the Hill
7:30 Sit Down, Shut Up
8:00 The Simpsons
8:30 American Dad
9:00 Family Guy
9:30 The Cleveland Show
hagi says:
“If u use single digit after decimal point, rounding must be proper, 1.25 rounds to 1.3… For its Monday numbers: 2.726 m/1.32=2.06=2.1″
hagi, that only applies to rounding, not truncating. There is no law that prohibits someone from truncating numbers instead of rounding.
One thing about ‘Til Death- isn’t it a bit early to be thinking about syndication? Less than 50 episodes have aired. (I’m not sure how many have been produced.)
Whatever dirt Brad Garrett has on Murdoch, Mitch Hurwitz better get himself some of it and fast, because without it, there’s no way in hell Sony can save his latest bomb beyond its five-week trial run. Didn’t that guy win back to back Emmys for “outstanding” comedy writing? Back to back Emmys, and THIS is what he comes up with? Here’s my catchphrase: OVERRATED HACK.
Michael, but if you add the Til Death episodes ordered (but unaired) for this season and next season you’re at 81 episodes. And while it’s not the traditional magic 100 needed for syndication, it seems that “81 may be the new 100″.
As to when the hell all those ratings sapping episodes are going to air, I’m still waiting for the ‘Til Death Independence Day Marathon!
bill if the shouting were done on TSCC then why is it all over the freaking internet that people want it back/?? and until you have a reliable source, such as fox don’t post speculation on the show you would hate to be proved wrong, sure the numbers are bad, but get ur evidence first
zac, the numbers are all the evidence I need for TSCC. And you’re right. I *hate* to be proven wrong. But there’s no chance of that in TSCC’s case.
Zac, the Internet does not = ratings or Battlestar Galactica and Gossip Girl would have 20 million viewers and Heroes would still be a top five show.
We post our predictions as predictions. But in the case of TSCC it’s not speculation, but rather that we’re merely waiting for the announcement. There is absolutely no way TSCC will be back on FOX next season. You can count on that, even without the press release.
American Dad can also be put in black. Not that many people are on the edge of their seat worrying about it.
http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=7824
http://www.tv.com/story/11811.html
Thanks, craigward.
i understand i would think that at least give tscc a half season, im ean the numbers were ok, tscc had one of the most difficult spots of any show…after a season finale like that there are lot of unanswered numbers or not i think tscc just needs a little more chance mant stopped watching because the story,line was slow but in the end john following riley half the time, i just think fox would be stupid to take tscc off the numbers were higher in the fall, and since thats fox’s fault for moving to fri why not put them back, and wtf did they move them in the first place they were get almost twice the viewers on mom, i mean they were doin decent in the 1st half of the season ad there were a few bad episodes every show struggles i think tscc just had a bad half and would improve i think fox is considering that sure the numbers are great but over has done average..and why have DVR if it doesnt count if you think about it, i bet half of americans have either dvtr or satellite, the truth is people who have cable is declining why do u think the numbers are low, i believe thats part of the reason why fri is low, and im only being optimistic, sry bill didnt mean to be harsh, i know numbers are important, but i would think fox shoulld at least do half a season see where they stand
I really hope that House gets renewed for another season. I really like House, its one of my favorite shows. And it will still do good if it gets renewed. Anyways, hope they renew it for another season.
Yes, Kimmie, FOX is going to cancel the highest rated scripted show they have…. You might want to actually read the posts before you comment.
House likely won’t be canceled until Hugh Laurie finally gets bored with it.
Til Death will get around 80 episodes after its fourth season which isn’t 100 but good enough for any off network sale.
No matter how you put it Terminator is gone, Dollhouse is waiting to be gone, Prison Break is ending next month and King of the Hill is ending sooon. American Dad, The Simpsons, Family Guy, House, Bones, Fringe, 24, Lie to Me, and Til Death will all be back. Despite my earlier schedule its possible that Sit Down, Shut Up will basically have their episodes burned off in the summer, though if I were FOX I would just keep it so 7:00 and 7:30 wouldnt have to be filled with repeats in the fall. If the series were The Winner or Unhitched it would be axed, but since the series is animated this could be different for Sit Down.
Ive already stated my projected sunday schedule and it has been confirmed until October that Hell’s Kitchen will be airing Tuesdays at 8 and the new reality series More to Love will be airing at 9 on Tuesdays atleast until september.
Thursdays could have Bones at 8 and Fringe at 9. Both series are similiar to one another so the combo could work well.
Mondays could have House at 8 and Lie to Me at 9. Both of these series are also similiar to each other and could make mondays better than last season.
Fridays. FOX could have Fifth Grader and Lyrics combo again, that worked out alright for them.
Not sure about wednesdays though. In terms of new series, FOX could opt to wait until Hell’s is over in November and premiere something there tuesdays.
What does everyone think so far?
Zac: “after a season finale like that there are lot of unanswered numbers” (I assume you mean questions).
Yeah – like how Friedman got hired in the first place with zero sci-fi street cred. Like how you can take a guaranteed hit like Terminator and get it canceled within a season and a half. You have any idea how embarrassed Warner Brothers must be by this fiasco?
Right now my opinion of Josh Friedman is on a par with the guy who got killed in the first episode of season two by Weaver: “Man, that bitch pisses me off!”
I like Dollhouse and Fringe. i like Dollhouse a lot more. But its so unusual, I can see why people don’t know what to make of it. Still, I think if it had a while it might get there. I guess most people relly just want to watch cop shows.
Ok…but Terminator is so badly written its hard to watch. the plots barely make any sense at all. Its just all about proving how ruthless that ballerina can be. Thats just silly. Something like that is by no means a guaranteed hit. Not that many people will just watch anything scifi. Except Star treck. For some reason if you dress up a bunch of people in tight black and green jump suits and put that little v pin on them you have fans.
Isn’t American dad, Family Guy and the Simpsons the same show/
I think V had a terrific premise. Thats the thing, if you are doing diplomacy, you don’t know if “they” are nice or not. Why the “duh”? How would one quantify an unquantifiable thing? Besides they were not all rotters, and even if earthlings knew the V aliens were bad from the start they could have over run us anyways, so diplomacy was necessary. It was a very cool, and deep show. And the characters were a lot better then Battlestar. of course I didn’t like the new battlestar anyhow. And the stupid angel thing just proved it. Now a remake of V I could get into.
Ooh. Kimmie’s comment says all there needs to be said for House fans. Yeah, Kimmie, I sure hope they don’t cancel their number one show. Well, maybe if she watches House and thinks people really drink on the job like that its understandable.
Michael the dolls are being raped and the whole show is about how bad it is to use people and rob them of humanity. just because the bad guys aren’t drooling evil slime doesn’t mean the show is about “sympathetic rapists”. I guess you just need things to be more obvious, but the show is very clear on them being bad guys. Its not just Sierra thats being raped. all the dolls are just by being dolls. Duh.
Wait..how are Adelle and Topher likeable? They take away peoples memories and force them to do things with brain washing? that didn’t clue you in that they were bad?
Dollhouse could have done better if it got more advertising and consistent time slot. I only found out about it about two months ago. same with a lot of other people. Its a great show, and I think it will get picked up by a more fitting network. i think it would be best off in a more youthful network. Maybe CW. That would be a good fit. I never watch Fox.I always associate it with fat cartoon dads. I am amzed fringe did well, but then they advertised the heck out of it.
I am one of those folks who does watch just about any series with a sci/fi fantasy premise. The original “V” is a rare example of one that I just could not get into at all.
As long as Bones comes back, all will be right in my world.
I read somewhere that Fox ordered 6 episodes of Bones for next season…is it normal for a network to order so few episodes, or is it possible that the source is bad?
I like TSCC it would have been nice to see them tie it up with the current film but they didn’t oh well what can you do. I can understand the point about TSCC’s demo number (Regardless it won’t save the show.) as the laws of rounding state 0-4 round down and 5-9 round up so 1.252 would round to 1.3. What can I say I’m a stickler for numbers and this is a numbers site.
The shouting for T:TSCC is over? Not by a long shot.
T : T S C C !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bwap! Did my interpretive dance sell it? Glad to see American Dad will be back.
Honestly. I really think its crap. These shows don’t really get a chance. Alot of people who watch them are not in the United States. Soldiers all over the world enjoy some of the shows and would like another season.
Til Death, will make a trumendance amount in syndication, local nets want sitcom reruns to strip Brad Garret was on Raymon, Raymon is a hit….Their will be very few new sitcoms entering the market in 2 seasons, the only ones I can think of would be Old Christine, possibly 30 Rock if 80 episodes is the new 100. I am in dissbelief Sony didn’t make the deal that Til Death could only air after American Idle, and give Fox an even cheaper show, that way when it enters syndication it would have even more buffed up numbers.
Pete, FOX would never ever ever in a million years make that deal.