It’s time to take stock of where fall’s 18 new shows have landed in the ratings landscape. Which is to say few shows rate above their network’s scripted average. Less than half of the new shows rate above the network’s scripted averages with only nine back 9 orders.
No network has yanked a show off the schedule for its poor ratings. Still, a handful of shows are currently succeeding per their network’s standards, and more importantly in publicly available commercial ratings. The question is whether these shows can hold onto their semi-successful ratings alongside the winter and spring premieres to come.
I’ve written before about the importance of C3 and C7 which measures playback of commercials live and within three, or seven days of airing via DVR playback. Within the first two proper weeks of this fall, only five new scripted shows made it on the top 25, alongside 15 other scripted shows. NBC’s Manifest and New Amsterdam were fifth and sixth. FOX’s Last Man Standing revival came in twelfth, and CBS’ FBI and The Neighborhood were nineteenth and twenty-fifth. However, drops in most shows in the last month, only the networks and advertisers know how well C3/C7 ratings fare.
Back 9’s or the Lack Thereof
NBC’s drama ratings net them three and nine more episodes respectively with New Amsterdam getting the back 9. CBS ordered more episodes for four of its shows. The first back 9 of the season went to FBI. Comedy The Neighborhood also has nine more episodes. CBS gave both Magnum P.I. and God Friended Me seven more episodes. I don’t think the latter has the best chances of renewal. Especially because GFM dropped two tenths in its second true time-slot airing without any football overrun. (Similar to Wisdom of the Crowd.)
Elsewhere, ABC ordered four more episodes for A Million Little Things (stuck at 0.8). They also gave one more for The Connors and seven to The Rookie. Comedies Single Parents and The Kids are Alright received back 9s.
Finally, FOX only premiered three comedies this season. The Cool Kids has a full season joining LMS (already had 22). Unfortunately for Lil Rel, FOX revealed last week that his show is not on the spring schedule effectively canceling it.
The CW only finished premiering its three new fall shows two weeks ago. Any back orders should come after this article is published. Charmed is its only new drama above the network average and it’s a CBS Studios show, so it’s not going anywhere. Legacies is doing fine but All American has increased in the ratings, so anything could happen.
So far half of the new shows received the full back 9 including . Others received anywhere from one to seven episodes. Last year, only CBS and CW ordered back 9s and all but one (The Good Doctor) of the shows with shorter orders died. ABC and NBC both fared better this year than last but I doubt more than two of the short order shows are renewed.
I do think shorter episode orders become the norm with back 9 orders going mostly to comedies and less serialized dramas like procedurals. Of note, the shows that received less than nine episodes except for The Connors are averaging less than the network’s scripted average.
Network Averages
As of November 6, only eight newbies are rating at or above their network’s average.
Two months since shows started premiering, very few have held onto ratings that put them ahead of the new show pack. In fact, no network has more than six of their shows rating at or above the network’s average. Yet after years and years of broadcast ratings dropping ten percent each year, the first two weeks of this season were flat compared to the same time last year. Of course, the last few weeks have likely changed that. Come May the numbers may indicate that the yearly fall endures.
Based on the data available, more than half of the fall newbies will likely receive renewals, but most of their final season averages in May won’t excite anyone. Plus with 15 newbies yet to premiere, anything can change.
(Data is from ShowbuzzDaily, SpottedRatings, and TVSeriesFinale.)
Update: A few hours after this article was published, The CW ordered a back 9 for Charmed (season two through four, here we come) and three more episodes for All American and Legacies (uh, spring shows decide fall shows’ fate)? NBC also announced I Feel Bad will not have more episodes, effectively cancelling the first scripted show this fall.