Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.
Ratings Results of Interest: On Friday, CBS’ MacGyver slipped to a 1.4 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 9.1 million total viewers (according to the preliminaries). Those are still decent numbers for a Friday show and it looks to be safe for now. However, FOX’s The Exorcist is not in as good of shape as it slipped to a 0.7 rating with 2.1 million total viewer (based on the prelims). That network needs to reschedule that one now, otherwise it is on track for a date with the Network Executioner. On Thursday, NBC’s The Good Place slipped a bit to a 1.3 rating with 4.5 million total viewers. But it is right in line with the other NBC shows for that night, so consider it safe for now (and its lead-in, Superstore, already received a full season order at these ratings levels). You can see the ratings roundup for the earlier shows in the week at this link.
Scorecard: I have put together the first Scorecard for the Fall 2016 season, though don’t read too much into these numbers just yet because this is based on only one week of network averages and these numbers will adjust over the next few weeks. You can see the Scorecard with last year’s rankings for comparison purposes at this link. At the top of the list is FX’s American Horror Story which is well above that network’s benchmark (see definitions below). FOX’s Son of Zorn is in second place, but consider it heavily skewed at the moment because of its debut had the boost from NFL football and its numbers will normalize over the next month or so in its regular timeslot. I expect it to start heading down the list to join the other FOX shows lower down within a few weeks. The Syfy shows all look okay for now, performing better so far than last Spring’s entries from that network. Lucifer and Gotham are just a little below FOX’s average (with outlier Empire thrown out), and I expect them to stay in that range. Once Upon A Time is performing about even with where it was last year and is still the best rated show ABC has on Sunday nights. MacGyver looks a little low compared to the CBS average, but it is doing well for a Friday show. The Good Place is currently at the bottom of the list, but I expect it to move up in the coming weeks because NBC’s average is pushed up by extra airings from The Voice and that will start to normalize. The other shows in the bottom rungs I all consider on or near the bubble at this point and I am not expecting to see them move up much as the scorecard settles over the next few weeks.
The scorecard ranks all of the sci fi & fantasy shows’ ratings performance vs. their network’s ratings benchmark (see definition below). Shows at or above their benchmark should be okay, whereas those slipping notably below are getting into iffy territory.
Broadcast network scorecard based on the ratings through September 30th (metric definitions below):
| Rank (PW) | Series | Net | Std Avg | Net Bench | Var | Live+3 Avg Rtg | Cancel Alert |
| 1 | American Horror Story | FX | 1.49 | 0.60 | 0.89 | n/a | Low |
| 2 | Son of Zorn (O) | FOX | 1.75 | 1.32 | 0.43 | 2.60 | Low |
| 3 | Z Nation | Syfy | 0.33 | 0.20 | 0.13 | n/a | Low |
| 4 | Star Wars Rebels | DXD | 0.16 | 0.10 | 0.06 | n/a | Low |
| 5 | Van Helsing | Syfy | 0.22 | 0.20 | 0.02 | n/a | Low |
| 6 | Lucifer | FOX | 1.30 | 1.32 | -0.02 | 2.00 | Low |
| 7 | Aftermath | Syfy | 0.16 | 0.20 | -0.04 | n/a | Low |
| 8 | Gotham | FOX | 1.25 | 1.32 | -0.07 | 2.00 | Low |
| 9 | The Strain | FX | 0.46 | 0.60 | -0.14 | 0.97 | Renewed |
| 10 | Once Upon A Time (O) | ABC | 1.30 | 1.44 | -0.14 | n/a | Low |
| 11 | MacGyver (O) (F) | CBS | 1.55 | 1.92 | -0.37 | n/a | Low |
| 12 | The Last Man on Earth (O) | FOX | 0.90 | 1.32 | -0.42 | n/a | Moderate |
| 13 | Agents of SHIELD (O) | ABC | 1.00 | 1.44 | -0.44 | 2.00 | Low |
| 14 | The Exorcist (O) (F) | FOX | 0.85 | 1.32 | -0.47 | n/a | Moderate |
| 14 | Scream Queens (O) | FOX | 0.85 | 1.32 | -0.47 | 1.50 | Moderate |
| 16 | The Good Place (O) | NBC | 1.58 | 2.06 | -0.48 | 2.65 | Low |
Metric Definitions:
Rank (PW): Current rank based on the variance of a show’s season to date ratings average vs. its network’s benchmark (see definition below). The number in parenthesis is the prior week’s rank.
Series: (O) indicates the show is owned/produced by the network and/or a sister studio. (F) indicates the show airs on Friday when ratings expectations are lower. These typically just apply to the broadcast networks where they are more of a factor.
StD Avg: The show’s season to date ratings average based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic.
Net Bench (Network Benchmark): For the broadcast networks, this is the net’s season to date average rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic for non-sports, non-special, non-repeat broadcasts (for FOX, Empire is also excluded because it counts as an outlier). For the cable channels, this is the lowest level at which a show is typically renewed by that network if there are enough genre entries on that channel to provide a decent sample.
Variance: The variance between a show’s season to date average and the network benchmark as defined above. The higher the variance, the better a show is performing vs. the network mean.
Live+3 Avg Rtg: The show’s season to date ratings average based on delayed viewing up to three days past the live broadcast. This data is not available for all shows. Last year I had the Live+7 delayed viewing, but the availability of that data was very spotty so I am shifting to this metric.
Cancel Alert: My prediction of the likelihood that a show will get cancelled. From least to most likely the statuses are Low, Moderate, Medium, Elevated, and High.
