Our Renew / Cancel Index predicts potential renewal or cancellation for scripted broadcast primetime shows for the 2010-11 season (results through November 22, 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 |
| Til Death (S), (F) | 0.20 |
| Brothers (F) | 0.24 |
| Dollhouse (F), (P) | 0.26 |
| Fringe | 0.59 |
| Bones (P) | 0.77 |
| Lie To Me (P) | 0.79 |
| Glee (P) | 0.92 |
| American Dad (P) | 0.93 |
| The Cleveland Show (P) | 1.13 |
| The Simpsons (P) | 1.16 |
| Family Guy (P) | 1.27 |
| House | 1.52 |
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Note that the Index values for all Fox shows will continue to be very depressed for some time because the World Series ratings have unusually boosted Fox’s overall 18-49 average (3.6 vs. ~3.o before baseball). That will slowly subside as Fox’s average averages out post-baseball. For the time being, the order of the shows is far more important than the Index values.
I have already written a lot about Fringe’s move to the brutally competive Thursday 9pm timeslot, and its subsequent ratings devastation. Fox will certainly be breaking the “rules” of the Renew / Cancel Index if it brings Fringe back next season, but they might just based on their limited expectations for the move. Or not. I have no way of knowing. Neither do fans. Nor entertainment writers fed PR spin. You just gotta believe. Or not.
Dollhouse, Brothers and ‘Til Death are all canceled, either in fact or in practice. Dollhouse fans will see all its episodes that were produced, that’s the best the other two can hope for as well.
This is a breakdown of Fox 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 it’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.
friday is where shows go to die…. thursday is where shows go to get killed
Fox kept Fringe on Thursday, so I’m wondering if they are fine with the current ratings it has.
Your title sounds alot like the X-Files Slogan.
I Want To Believe.
Fringe is getting more and more awesome… and it was already pretty damned good. The real question is why does FOX keep sending it’s shows against ratings powerhouses, and then wonder why they don’t perform as expected? If they had put Fringe against Heroes on Mondays, I suspect viewers may have switched to Fringe’s superior sci-fi for both premise and acting.
On a personal note, I just may cry if Fringe is cancelled. I’m completely hooked.
I gotta believe…
that Fox has no love for Fringe, that they would rather burn a prime post-AI timeslot on some silly child genius reality show.
Or at the very least, that Fox loves Fringe far less than Human Target, that keeping HT out of Lost’s way outweighs Fringe collapsing on Thursdays.
I furthermore believe that only a combination of failures – HT being DoA, 24 not coming back, AND Lie to Me fizzling once it returns – are the only chance Fringe now has.
Yeah, Fringe basically needs multiple other shows on Fox to collapse in order to survive.
The thing is Human Target and likely Lie to Me have Idol lead-ins, so that almost guarantees they’ll outperform Fringe’s current squalor. And 24 will surely break 2.0s. Past Life will bomb no doubt, but with the order cut Fox expected that anyway.
It’s just, I look at Fox’s schedule. It’s pretty crammed as is, since they only have two hours of primetime, and they’ve got a number of strong performers they won’t want to move around.
Fringe’s only real hope is if Fox decides to timeshare it for half a season next year. No way it can get a full season with its poor numbers.
Jump American Dad, Glee! Though it’s Fox’s #2 hourlong right now, I wonder how it’ll rank in the spring.
I see no reason why Bones, Fringe, or Kitchen Nightmares would beat it. Past Life isn’t getting a particularly good timeslot, possibly for a reason. Our Little Genius better fail. So I see it in the top half; Idol & House in the lead, probably 24 behind that, then Glee vs. Human Target in the post-Idol slot war. Which hopefully Glee wins.
Saying Fringe’s 0.59 is less impressive than Lie To Me’s 0.79 is like saying my B in AP Calculus is less impressive than my A in Home Economics.
I think it’s pretty clear FOX is still standing behind the show, and trying to keep its numbers afloat. They’re protecting it from the Olympics, still keeping it for the first week of Feb. sweeps as well as all of May’s sweeps, etc. etc.
While FOX’s opinion may change in the future, saying Fringe is on the verge of cancellation right *now* is a pretty short-sighted conclusion (and woefully ignorant when considering other factors IMO, or in this case, not considering them when you should).
First I love Fringe.
Second Fox has effectively killed it with the timeslot and I while I would like them to move it, I think that they will not get the audience back. A show like this cannot be presented in dribs and drabs. You need to put it on and keep a continuous story in play week after week.
Oh well, I hope Murdoch pulls all his properties off of the google index and fox dies a slow death like FireFly and TSCC and now Fringe.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2009/tc20091124_203544.htm
They should jus…not cancel it :]. MOVE THE FRIGGEN SHOW TO A BETTER TIME! HOW HARD IS THAT??
I think there are two view points you can take with Fringe one is that Fox is still standing behind the show and giving it as many chances as it can to succeed (letting it avoid the Olympics etc.) or alternatively Fox is giving the impression of standing behind the show and giving it as many chances as it can to keep JJ Abrams happy so that come the end of the season they can say we protected you as much as we could and gave you a full season to rebuild an audience and then cancel it.
Should Fox have moved it back behind Idol? I don’t think so nor do I think they should move it away from Thursday night although its worth mentioning that since Human Target will likely end its run before Fringe is scheduled to return it might still move off and Thursday and behind Idol on Wednesday, I assume that will depend on what Lie To Me and perhaps to a lesser extent Our Little Genius look like and shape up. If Genius catches on I wouldn’t be hugely surprised to see more episodes produced for the Wednesday slot after Human Target finishes. Although where that would leave Lie To Me is anyone’s guess.
In general terms though my problem with moving Fringe is that I’m not sure what it accomplishes. If the show needs to have a big lead-in from House or Idol to get an audience then what’s the point in keeping it on the air? Fox aren’t going to be able to give it those slots for ever, they need to launch new shows and Fringe got incredibly good treatment last year. I also refuse to believe that being opposite Grey’s is doing that much damage to Fringe, the audience overlap there has to be minimal to say the least. Personally I think they should axe Fringe but I’m not convinced they will. Despite it making no sense from a numbers perspective I’m more worried about Lie To Me than Fringe just because unlike Fringe the expectation for its performance this year would have been much higher than its achieved.
Why is this site SO negative these days?
FOX will obviously be disappointed with FRINGE’s performance in its original season two timeslot; they thought they finally had a Thursday night powerhouse to hold its own against the other networks and soon realised they didn’t. But that doesn’t mean it’s an unsuccessful show: its target audience is simply more niche than that of CSI/Greys et al. Once FOX realise that, I’m sure they’ll give it a chance to compete in a more realistic timeslot.
FOX gambled on Fringe being more mainstream that it actually is this season. The gamble failed. But that doesn’t mean cancellation is imminent: FOX now know that they have a killer, niche sci-fi show on their hands, and I’m sure their scheduling next season will reflect that revelation.
“Saying Fringe’s 0.59 is less impressive than Lie To Me’s 0.79 is like saying my B in AP Calculus is less impressive than my A in Home Economics.
I think it’s pretty clear FOX is still standing behind the show, and trying to keep its numbers afloat. They’re protecting it from the Olympics, still keeping it for the first week of Feb. sweeps as well as all of May’s sweeps, etc. etc.
While FOX’s opinion may change in the future, saying Fringe is on the verge of cancellation right *now* is a pretty short-sighted conclusion (and woefully ignorant when considering other factors IMO, or in this case, not considering them when you should).”
Nicely put.
They should put Fringe on Wednesday with Glee
With a few exceptions, most of Season 2’s episodes really aren’t grabbing my attention. Season 1 had a great underlying mythology (“the Pattern”) and the story arcs fit very nicely into that mythology. This season Fringe is becoming more like the X-Files; there is no real solid underlying mythology and the story arcs are for the most part the monster of the week.
Well by the renew/cancel FOX is already cancelling 3 shows that are doing very badly (sorry dollhouse fans).
I think Fringe will be around next season, maybe on another night
I want to believe.
If they renewed Dollhouse for a second season, against all odds, who knows, everything is possible.
So… I want to believe.
Rich, Fox doesn’t appear to be in a position where they’d need to bring Fringe of all things back to fill holes in the schedule – its too expensive if nothing else. As things stand my guess is that Fox axes Dollhouse, Brothers, ‘Til Death, Past Life and one of Lie To Me or Fringe and assuming Human Target hits 24 will end its run this year.
That gives them 5 or so hours to fill over the course of next season, an hour of that will likely be via repeats on Friday and four new hours is (I think) on par with what they debuted this year.
There are number of factors at work.
1) Does FOX really want the show to continue?
2) What is its cost structure since moving production to Canada? Is it profitable enough? It does have a small core cast of likely low priced actors.
3) How Past Life performs in its place – if it implodes, that would help FRINGE’s case. Another FOX show imploding would help even more.
4) Sell it to NBC – they need something to replace the dying HEROES.
5) Maybe FRINGE will stay on the air in the alternate universe where William Bell is hiding and a syndication deal with the alternate universe version of FOX will be made; since in that universe the ratings are much higher since they left it in its old Tuesday time slot. At least thats what August told me before he died.
Just because Thursday is a tough time slot, doesn’t mean that moving Fringe is the answer. To move it somewhere, they’d have to move something ELSE to that Thursday slot. And just because there are shows that each of us, as individuals, would like to see go there to die/get killed, FOX clearly has to look at the big picture.
It seems to be FOX has been supporting Fringe as best they can, thinking it is the strongest show they have for the slot. If they had a purposefully weak show, I’m sure they’d just as soon not have a weak show at all than keep a weak show because of a need to fill a slot to get beaten…
Maybe some fans will start an online petition to save Fringe.
Can we play Bingo with Fringe now?
In all likelihood Season 2 will end and that will be it.
Thursdays at 9pm should have been used by FOX solely as a testing ground for brand new shows – just rotate them until they found one that worked, and left FRINGE on Tuesdays at 9pm. But you cant go back in time and change things.
Realistically its epitaph has already been written. Hopefully they will either end it in a memorable way or sell it NBC – that godawful network keeps HEROES on with only 5 million viewers (a million less than FRINGE) and a demo only slightly better than FRINGE.
Dont kill Fringe, move it! The US has some really weird scheduling! Thursdays is swamped with so many high rated shows as is Tuesday and then for the rest of the week virtually nothing! What is up with that?! Fringe is a prime example of poor network management! You analyse your audience, then its competition and then decide where to put a show. Thursdays 9pm is just not feesable if you’re Fringe or Supernatural for that matter!
Has anyone else besides me noticed that Fringe routinely leads the DVR playback audience, not in percent gain, but rather in raw numbers, gaining 0.8/0.9 in the 18-49 ratings?
Yes, I know advertisers don’t care. The point is that if the DVR audience is that large, it strongly implies Fringe would do a lot better in a less competitive timeslot. Surely FOX sees this as well.
The picture you used for this post is interesting , with Olivia almost disappeared ..
Is it random or does it mean something ?
I think Jordan is totally on point, I can’t even add anything to that so happy thanksgiving.
Isn’t it time you updated the title bar tag for this article? We already know the answers with Dollhouse, Brothers and ‘Til Death!
I notice a distinct change in the tone of the reporting on Fringe. I would like to think my comments had something to do with that, but I know that’s not the case.
Again – it’s simple: Fringe has improved the time period for Fox compared to last year. It’s a brutally competitive time period to boot. By that measure alone Fringe is a success on Thursday nights.
Fringe gets a lot of DVR viewership. Fox has to be pleased with that even if right now they’re not sure what to do with those numbers. If they cancel Fringe, what do they put on in its place that would get a similar rating? Who knows.
Until Fox says something that hints at the future of the show, just leave it alone and report the numbers.
Originally Posted by Michael J
“With a few exceptions, most of Season 2’s episodes really aren’t grabbing my attention. Season 1 had a great underlying mythology (”the Pattern”) and the story arcs fit very nicely into that mythology. This season Fringe is becoming more like the X-Files; there is no real solid underlying mythology and the story arcs are for the most part the monster of the week.”
Umm, have you actually been watching the show? The Pattern is the overarching story for the entire series, and they’re starting to discover that the Pattern has to do with events from the alternate universe. I don’t think this season has been weak at all. It’s advancing the overall story quite nicely.
Unless every single one of FOX’s four new midseason replacements tanks like Joss Whedon’s business, the visitors of time slot unimprovement “Fringe” will be visiting FOX’s axe come May. Thanks for asking. Glad to be of help.
Originally Posted by Michael J
“This season Fringe is becoming more like the X-Files; there is no real solid underlying mythology and the story arcs are for the most part the monster of the week.”
No real solid underlying mythology in The X Files? Are you serious? You must not have seen much of that show either.
Fox should cancel Fringe. It’s an embarrassment to Science Fiction TV.
i dont see the show getting a third season with this horrible numbers. tru calling had 5-6 million in 2004, same night, same time slot, different competition (friends, stronger CSI, will and grace) different treatment: fox cancelled it after 6 episodes and never showed the rest.
maybe if the show can pull 6-7 million and 2.7/7, there’s a change, but if it keeps on this line or drop, it’s over.
What they need to do is more viral marketing. I’m thinking The Observer making out with Adam Lambert, while pouring Tabasco Sauce over him. That would cause a media firestorm and reignite viewship.
Enough with the flimsy “time period improvement” excuse. It’s only an improvement over Kitchen Nightmares by a tick or two (and that show didn’t have a solid lead-in in Bones, either) and a huge step down from Hell’s Kitchen in the timeslot, so it’s not an improvement at all. Fringe fans are lucky Fox seems committed to keeping Hell’s Kitchen a summer show.
If any other show was in this exact same predicament everyone would be calling for its cancellation.
Fringe will play out it’s entire second season, there’s no doubt about that, but then it’s done. They promote the show plenty, it’s just people aren’t watching. No good excuse for numbers this bad. It’s doing worse than Heroes, even.
Mumbo I agree with you, I’m sure FOX was thinking that Fringe needs to be able to hold it’s own in a tough timeslot to justify it’s high price tag. Yes the show would do well post Idol, but it shouldn’t need such a plum timeslot to succeed. The post Idol slot has always been used to launch new shows. FOX gave Fringe a big vote of confidence when they put it on Thursdays at 9. It didn’t work out for them, but that says more about Fringe then it does about how FOX has treated it. I wouldn’t think that Fringe shares much of an audience with Grey’s or CSI, it might share some of the audience with The Office, but that still wouldn’t explain why the ratings are so low.
Til Death Hasn’t Been Cancelled Yet!!!
Others seem to see what I’m talking about. Fox will win November sweep for the first time ever. The world series helps, but the fact Fox does not have a ratings black hole on any night (aside from friday where every network is challenged) helps more.
Read on: http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/11/fox-projected-to-win-november-sweeps-for-first-time.html
Fringe is sooooooo boring and pointless…
If they want to be like The X-Fles and only to do a couple of mythological episodes (wich in Fringe are boring too) by season, they better start doing GOOD standalones.
Do people actually have any #’s to say Fringe is an expensive show?
I just want to be clear, it moved from NY, because the government tax exceptions ran out last year. So they moved to Vancouver, where there’s tax exemptions as well and lower cdn dollar.
I’m not saying it’s cheap, but it looks no more expensive than say NCIS:LA or any other police procedural.
The expensive talk, I think, isn’t really about the actual cash amount it takes to make each show. It’s perhaps more about the amount of cash it takes to make each episode vs. the profit each show brings in?
If an episode costs $1,000,000 to film but with dreadful ratings only brings in a tiny profit it might be considered too expensive in relation to the cost to film. If a $1,000,000 episode brings in $2,000,000 profit then the cost isn’t considered too expensive due to the large profit. It’s relative….I think
“I’m not saying it’s cheap, but it looks no more expensive than say NCIS:LA or any other police procedural.”
Well yeah, but most other procedurals get a lot higher returns than Fringe.
Fringe has high production values, special effects, and all that involved, so while I doubt it costs as much as, say, Trauma, it still can’t be that cheap.
I would imagine expense-wise it’s toward the top of the middle area of hour-long dramas, but that’s just a guess. It’s more expensive than a 2.0 rating justifies, I can almost guarantee that.
*Oh I almost forgot.
Not a whole lot of people are watching Fringe right now, but one especially important person is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbkE53RkKU&feature=channel
Michael J says:
November 25, 2009 at 5:06 am
With a few exceptions, most of Season 2’s episodes really aren’t grabbing my attention. Season 1 had a great underlying mythology (”the Pattern”) and the story arcs fit very nicely into that mythology. This season Fringe is becoming more like the X-Files; there is no real solid underlying mythology and the story arcs are for the most part the monster of the week.
In many ways I agree with this. I stil enjoy Fringe but the writers have not built on that cliffhanger of season 1.
Chuck
How could FOX treat Fringe like some low budget, poorly written crap…its far from that, its superior, its amazing, one of the best shows on TV, how could they just destroy it? Why in the world did they put it on thursdays to begin with? I dont think Ill ever know, theyre just completely stupid. SAVE FRINGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tvmegafan, I really don’t think that FOX put Fringe on Thursdays to kill it. They decided that they wanted to throw their hat into the ring and try to get a piece of the Thursday ratings pie. Granted it didn’t work, and I don’t see how it can rebound after the fact. It was a risk, that didn’t pay off. The genre of serialized shows (especially sci-fi shows) usually don’t recover from bad ratings no matter what the networks do to try to save them.
For people who question how much Fringe costs remember that the pilot episode was reportedly made for around $10 million, this is not a cheap show by any stretch of the imagination. The cost of that pilot and season one as a whole is why Fringe was given both a House lead-in and then an American Idol lead-in last season, Fox needed it to score big to earn back what they were spending. I would imagine the large cost of the show was also a big motivating factor in moving the show to Thursday nights, where Fox is able to take advantage of higher HUT and pick up better ad rates.
I’m not suggesting that Fringe is averaging $10 million an episode or even anything close to that but its hard to imagine them producing this for less than $3 million an episode at the very least and I suspect that it actually works out as more than that.
And for those that don’t want to do the maths if Fringe is average $3 million an episode that’s $72 million over the course of a 24 episode season but if its episode average is closer to $4 million its closing in on a $100 million budget over the course of a 24 episode season. Of course these numbers also assume that Fox’s license fee for the show is equal to the average episode budget, which may not be the case.
Sci-fy wants to pick up dollhouse !!!!!!
I Guess I have to believe. If this is FOX’s way to counterprogram…SO BE IT!!! I am not happy with it. If they do renew please move it next season.
Otherwise I am sticking to the show.
Just becase a show is moving to anther day, doesn’t make the shows plot better or worse. It is still going to be the same, regardless of its time slot. I love Glee.
I believe. I do. Man, I love this show, I gotta believe, every day and every time.
if the show doesn’t pick up in the second half of the season I couldn’t care less if it get canceled. So far season 2 is a yawnfest.
It’s worth pointing out that a lot of fans who post here, who seem to be big fans of the show since S1, have been complaining about the low quality of S2 and that they are not bothering with the show anymore. So all the talk of the timeslot being the reason for the bad ratings may only be half true. If the show isn’t living up to what the fans want of it then it doesn’t matter what time it airs, the ratings will not improve. I myself think it’s more about the show being low quality than the time it airs.
DipStickLick, I agree 100%. The show just isn’t interesting. The promos for it don’t help it either. Just boring all around.
They Could be going with another approach i have seen some networks use.
Fringe has a nitch group of ppl that watch. They enjoy supernatural/SCI-FI alot of those fans could care less about Grey’s etc. So i think they half conceded, the time slot but pull in ratings they know they can get from a show that has a different appeal.
It’s same thing CW does on thursdays
They put smallville and supernatural up against Grey’s etc. I says Supernatural could steal more of the Fringe audience then Grey’s.
Ryan: im agree with you on the supernatural and fringe. hope fringe gets cancelled. so supernatural will get good numbers and go above 3 million again
Hasn’t Supernatural been on for like 100 years by now? Would the fans really bail out just to watch Fringe?
I have to agree with those who say season 2 of Fringe isn’t living up to expectations we had from season one. They’ve ignored a LOT of stuff thrown up in season one and done very little with the alternate universe stuff (other than the “body snatchers” guys which just isn’t good enough).
As I’ve said before, producers seem to have a “season two death wish” in that they ALWAYS slow down the pace of the overall concept. I really think producers and writers run out of ideas by end of season one of anything or they’re just too damn tired to make it through season two.
In my opinion the only bubble series in terms of 2010-2011 are
Fringe
Lie to Me
Human Target
Past Life
Everything else is either a lock for 2010-2011 or dead. Among these four bubble series, Past Life will likely be axed as a result of airing against Grey’s, CSI, and Office/30 Rock. Human Target will benefit from the Idol boost. As for sophomore Fringe and Lie to Me, Fringe taking a break could help or hurt the series. WHile its good FOX will air repeat free in the 9pm thursday slot, Fringe fans may or may not return April. Its 50/50. As for Lie to Me, it all depends where FOX airs the show when it returns, if they air it Post Idol when Huma Target finishes it could return, if they air it fridays at 8 (free slot) then it will likely die.
Kill the show already. It’s already been running too long. It would never had taken off last year if Fox didn’t give it the coveted spot behind AI.
I really enjoyed the “Fringe will be back in 90 seconds” commercial breaks for season one. It kept the crispness of the show in detail. I miss it.
They’re already cancelling three shows.
They can’t cancel Fringe too, FOX simply don’t have anything to put in these slots.
Fringe IS THE BEST! it WILL BE RENEWED!
Move the show OFF Thursday nights!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The suits are retarded with their “let’s move all our best to Thursday” and ultimately see everyone’s ratings take a hit…
Makes zero sense imo
We can’t even watch and dvr all we want to watch on Thur., that’s ridicules!!
@Person,
What three shows? Dollhouse, Brothers and….’Til Death (well, maybe)? Do you really think the cancelation of those low-rated Friday shows have any bearing on Fringe’s chances?
If FOX does decide to cancel Fringe, has anyone heard whether another network, cable or otherwise is interested in picking it up? ABC might look to secure it since FlashFoward doesn’t appear to be holding its audience based on the sheer boredom of that show. Maybe TNT will snatch it up. They wisely picked up ‘Southland’. That could work. Or, maybe Syfy…one can hope.