Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through October 18, 2009):
- Likely To Be Canceled By May, 2010
- Some Danger Of Being Canceled By May, 2010
- Likely to Be Renewed For The 2010-11 Season
| Program | Renew/ Cancel Index |
| The Beautiful Life: TBL (P) | 0.49* |
| Melrose Place (P) | 0.67 |
| Smallville (F), (P) | 0.81 |
| 90210 (P) | 0.88 |
| Gossip Girl (P) | 0.94 |
| One Tree Hill (P) | 0.94 |
| Supernatural (S), (P) | 1.00 |
| Vampire Diaries (P) | 1.42 |
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Will the return of Heather Locklear to Melrose Place save the show? I highly doubt it. But she’s almost exactly a year younger than I am, and I do appreciate the employment opportunity the CW is providing to a member of my generation.
I’m confident Melrose Place will be around for all its episodes this season, just like Privileged was. I’m also confident it will be canceled at the end of this season, just like Privileged was.
Nothing else currently on The CW looks to be in danger of not coming back next season because of its ratings.
*I have frozen The Beautiful Life’s Index at its value the week of cancellation.
This is a breakdown of CW scripted shows and their renewal and cancellation prospects. Here are links to the other networks:
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Notes:
The Renew/Cancel Index is a show’s Season To Date adults 18-49 rating divided by its network’s Season to Date average 18-49 rating. If a show’s season to date 18-49 ratings average equalled its network’s 18-49 average, the show would have an Index of 1.00. Without special factors, scripted shows that were more than 10% below their network’s average are typically canceled by the end of the broadcast primetime season.
Factors that could cause a show to be renewed with well below average index:
- (F) -Fridays: Shows airing on Fridays have been renewed with significantly lower than average Indexes.
- (S) – Syndication: Shows nearing syndication (66-88 episodes), often have economic factors that trump ratings leading to renewal.
- (T) – Third Party: Shows that have a portion of their cost underwritten by a 3rd party can be renewed with substantially lower ratings.
- (P) – Produced by the network’s production company – For shows on the bubble, being produced by the network’s corporate production company can be a survival advantage. For real losers, it’s unlikely to help.
While I initially tried to designate shows with “plum” timeslots, I think that’s hard to make that call at this point in the season. It’s likely still a factor, but will have to be an “after the fact” call.
What’s the History of the Index and How Did It Do In the Past? Check out the results from the 2007-8 season and the 2008-9 season.
Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. All ratings used are Live+Same Day viewing.
Well I’m guessing Locklear’s appearance will generate at 1.1 18-49 demo for that show and 1.90 million viewers.
i hope it sticks around, its pretty good actually and the story line is much better then 90210’s season 1 was, and they’ve worked the old cast members in the storyline very well, and 90210 didnt…
i dont think so
this show is so diffrent from the earlier counterpart
not even close
wish her luck though but
no i dont think so
the show has its problems, but generally i enjoy it. it has somethings quite attractive. maybe another guilty pleasure.
pleasssssseeeeee…….no more smallville.
MP deserves to be cancelled, but just wait and see, Dawnie will spin it so i it actually looks like a success
Not to question the wisdom behind the mighty Renew/Cancel Index, but… For a network like the CW, with a grand total of ten hours of primetime, is it still useful? Doesn’t the index really only just mean that the ratings for most of the shows are similar rather than good?
That is to say, if the ratings for a lot of your shows are equally disappointing, aren’t you still likely to toss some out at the end of the season in the hopes that new ones will do better?
90210 is bettr than MP. Season 1 of 90210 was awful in the first 5 or 6 eps but now its very watchable except for the secret with Naomis sister having slept with Liam that story is taking way too long to be revealed.
Ray, if you look at last season on the CW, the list looked a lot like this one, but with Privileged substituting for MP. The rest of the shows were very closely bunched in the 18-49 ratings (minus the Friday comedies & Reaper, which were doomed regardless of ratings).
On a network by network basis, relative performance is all that matters. The fact that the best CW show doesn’t do as well as the worst ABC show is meaningless for the decision process within the CW. They’ll get rid of their worst shows and try again next season.
Robert: i totally agree, i want Naomis’s sisters sectret revealed and her gone, she annoys me
Major flaw with the ~Index, Smallville should be much higher up, because of the following factors, which I don’t think are included:
- It’s their third highest rated series in total viewers
- Target demos aren’t THAT bad
- CW don’t pay full whack for the series, the studio (who co-owns the CW anyway) put up half the budget
- High DVD/BR and international sales (massive re-launch imminent in the UK and Ireland), where the CW have gross points
- There is nothing else for them to put on the Friday schedule guaranteed to bring in the same figures as the rest of the week
I suggest you re-think how your Index functions to include things like the above.
Wow, the Plastic Surgery on Heather Locklear face makes her look like a lawn ornament. Is she able to show any other expression without animatronics?
@ dillan
actually target demos is lower than a melrose place repeat and it w18-34 rating tied with antm encore on fridays!!!
Was the old Melrose as cheesy and bubbly as this one? In that case, I can’t see how the old fans will turn in even if Heather comes back. She’s only going to be around for a few episodes.
Bill – misunderstanding. I was just talking about the RCI’s usefulness within the parameters of the CW, ie. for a network with few hours of primetime and small numbers overall.
The lesser the numbers of primetime, the more autocorrelation between one show’s rating and the overall primetime rating. And the smaller the network ratings overall, the less variance between shows. So for the CW, you are bound to end up with values that much more similar to each other.
Of course, I can’t quite refute your argument of empirical evidence in the past – even though the contribution of each hour on the CW’s overall average has, of course, increased by 17% since last season.
(It’ll be worse for NBC and “Leno”, of course, with “Leno” contributing around 23% to NBC’s overall, whereas each CW show only contributes around 10%.)
Wowa…Vampire Diaries REALLY fell in the index. I mean the last two weeks it easily got 1.6X.
Dillan, total viewers don’t matter one iota. And almost ALL shows on all networks are paid for in large part by the studio.
@Dillain, I think this is a weekly index so it’s based on the ratings of a couple weeks ago, not last Friday which was Smallville’s highest ratings yet. I think we’ll see Smallville bounce around for a bit until the major sporting events die down.
Re: MP, I never liked the original. And I don’t know why CW would think Locklear would be a ratings draw for their target audience? She is three years older than me. She (and I) could easily be mothers to the lower end of the CW young woman demo.
I can see people my age, who would’ve fallen in the young woman demo category for the original, tuning in for curiosity (Not me!!), but why would people who were young children back in the day care?
Ray, I don’t think that fewer shows for the CW *necessarily* means that its shows ratings are grouped more closely together. And I’d love to do this Index for the CW using women 18-34 numbers instead of 18-49, but we lack the data to do it that way, plus 18-49 has shown to be very predictive of CW actions regardless of their preference for W18-34.
Heradite, blame the CW average which went from a 1.0 to a 1.2 in a single week
JenSmith, no, the Index includes ratings through the previous Sunday (which in this case was 10/18).
@Bill, I saw that after I hit enter. D’OH..no way to edit..
Bill – they are grouped more closely mostly because with the lower numbers that the CW pulls, there’s just less variance. With show ratings pretty much locked between 0.5 to 2.0, there is only a range of 1.5. With the bigger networks, you get twice that range, easily. But that’s always been a weakness for the CW data, obviously.
Add to that the increasing autocorrelation, though… and I have to start wondering.
Consider “Leno”: It contributes around 5/22nds (23%) of NBC’s overall rating – which is what you are comparing it to in the Index. So “Leno” is a lot more likely to be close to 1.00 than, say, “30 Rock”, which contributes less than 1/44th (2%) of NBC’s overall. For the CW, each show has a relatively high contribution of 1/10th to the network overall – less than “Leno”, but much more than “30 Rock”.
And now I think I’ve overstayed my statistical welcome. Good night.
YOUR INDEX CANNOT BE RIGHT…IM SORRY BUT YOU MUST HAVE MISCACULATED..MELROS ECOULD NOT HAVE FALLEN SO FAR DOWN.
@Jeremy, I’m sure the caps lock makes everyone believe you.
Vampire Diaries just might save the CW, if it goes above a 2 they might be almost mildly respected again.
First 6 eps, W 18-34 avgs:
GG 2.78, Vampire 2.72, Model 2.48, 90210 2.35, Hill 2.22, Place 1.73, Super 1.53
i love Heather but she’s too good and talented to be on that bad remake! come on Heather you’re better than that and you know it, but i guess she needs money since her career hasn’t been that good since… well Melrose! she was great on LAX though…
Actually she got 2 Golden Globe noms for Spin City. She really made the show for me. Well her/her chemistry with her male co-leads. Oh, the days when Charlie Sheen was on a non-sucktacular sitcom.
@Jack: Total viewers DO mean something, as they give a broad overview of a series’ audience across all demos, and allow the network to focus in on specific demos for specific advertisers.
For example, 90210 has a lot of teenage viewers, under the age of 18, which would appeal to the same advertisers that buy slots on Nick or ABC Family, but this rating is almost never published on this site.
In the case of Smallville, it has a high number of male adults, majority in their late 30s/early 40s, which the CW can use to lure in big-bucks advertisers who want to advertise mature male-intended products.
Although I’m from the UK, I watch Smallville via streaming, and the type of adverts played during the East Coast feed are quite different to say what’s played during The Vampire Diaries. I notice more Ford/GM car ads, more restaurants ads for something called Red Lobster, more financial planning ads, etc.
I highly doubt the likes of Morgan Stanley of WaMu advertise during Gossip Girl – but if they do, feel free to correct me…
I mean Morgan Stanley OR WaMu, I know they’re separate companies.
I read that Heather also got several nominations for her role on Melrose Place.
No-Gossip Girl has movie promos for the latest horror crap, tampons, and…car commercials.
I can’t believe no one has jumped on the news EW broke a few hours ago that two characters will be leaving the show in December: Violet and Auggie.
Could Heather Locklear’s return coupled with Ashlee Simpson’s departure be enough to lure in some new viewers?
I still don’t think that the CW will axe this, i think it will get a second season.
I actually think Heathers return will boost the ratings over 2 million (with DVR Musch higher)
I also think the CW are learning that the DVR numbers DO matter for their network (an article recently commented that the CW shows benefit the most from DVR because young people watch TV differntly, the y record and watch later).
The CW are also doing a lot of work to make this show work (Simpson and Colin have been axed and their relooking at the show).
The CW will want this to work, they have put a lot of time and effort in to it plus a lot of promotion, i would not be shocked if it came back for a second season.
I must admit I do actively change the channel on this show even though I don’t really have anything else to watch at the time just to keep the Ashlee Simpson content in my life down at a healthy zero. Comments like mine don’t seem to be at all uncommon and thus this could prove to be a good move for the show.
Heather Locklear is one of few actresses the tv industry believes almost guarantee a ratings boost by their addition to the current cast of an ailing show – another is Betty White. A classic “in” joke was that the two were hired to be on the first episode of “Boston Legal” for just that reason.
Craig — the CW has a lot of scripted dramas in development. They WANT their shows to be higher rated. Vampire Diaries is at least showing them its possible. Networks don’t stick with duds when they have hot new prospects to replace them. The CW PR dept has gushed over Melrose — of course they have — they’re trying to get people to watch it. Its their job. But I don’t think the network is as invested in Melrose (and 90210 for that matter) as they are in Gossip Girl. I think Dawn would jettison both shows in a hot minute if she thought the spy school for girls and Bitches in Britches would do better.