Cancellation Watch: Intelligence Suffers a Huge Ratings Drop, Revolution Stumbles, and Pretty Much All Genre Show are Down

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.

One series took a huge drop in the ratings this week while most other genre entries saw their ratings dip or fail to improve.

The Hot Seat:  Last week on Tuesday, new CBS series Intelligence debuted to decent ratings (2.4 score in the 18-49 demo) and an amazing tally of total viewers (16.5 million) and looked like it was getting off to a strong start, even landing in the Top 10 for the week.  However, it premiered in the Tuesday 9 PM EST timeslot just behind NCIS and apparently benefited greatly from that show’s lead-in.  This week, the series moved to its regular Monday 10 PM EST timeslot and experienced a potentially disastrous ratings tumble as it could only muster a 1.2 score with 6.2 million total viewers.  That’s a 50% drop in the show’s rating and a mind-numbing 62% drop in total viewers (and remember that the total viewer count has more significance to older-skewing CBS).  Series executive producer Michael Seitzman flat out said of the ratings drop: “That sucked”.  And CBS execs claimed that they would watch the upcoming numbers closely as well as the DVR gains.  And while that’s true on the former point, the DVR numbers are nothing but a footnote as those don’t convince advertisers to buy more commercial time.  I’m not sure if maybe people got confused about the timeslot change, but the numbers from next week’s episode will be crucial to the show’s future.  If it doesn’t start trending up right away, this show could likely be a goner.  I have it at only a Moderate Cancellation Alert right now because I want to see if the ratings drop was just an aberration.  But that alert level will go up real quickly without a notable increase in the ratings next week.

Also struggling, NBC’s Revolution slipped notably to a series low on Wednesday, only pulling a 1.3 rating in the 18-49 demo with just 4.8 million total viewers.  The show’s return from hiatus the prior week seemed to suggest an upward trend in its numbers, but that reversed this week, crashing the  slight hope that fans out there might have had that the series would pick up steam the second half of this season.  Consider this one almost certainly on its last leg at this point.  Over on The CW, The Tomorrow People returned from hiatus right where it left off with only a 0.5 rating and 1.5 million total viewers.  Yeah, it airs on the fifth place network, but I’m thinking those numbers are not good enough to win it a second season.  We will see how it trends in the coming weeks, though, before it gets kicked to Mondays where its numbers will almost certainly plummet.

Other Ratings News: There was little good news from the Nielsens for genre shows this week in general as even the ones doing relatively well made little progress with their numbers.  ABC’s Agents of SHIELD remained steady with last week pulling a 2.2 rating in the 18-49 demo with 6.4 million total viewers.  At least that one did not drop, but I’m still guessing that ABC would really rather see higher ratings for this rather expensive entry.  The Originals returned from hiatus and slipped to a 0.9 rating with 2.1 million total viewers.  It’s lead-out Supernatural also dropped with its return, pulling a 1.0 rating with 2.2 million total viewers.  And Arrow got back in the saddle this week and also dropped as it garnered only a 0.9 score with 2.5 million total viewers.  Those aren’t particularly bad numbers for those CW shows, but they are all on the lower end of what they have seen thus far this season.  FX’s American Horror Story: Coven also slid as it dipped to a 1.7 rating with 3.5 million total viewers and pulled second place for the night among cable shows behind the season premiere of Duck Dynasty (don’t get me started).  On Monday night, Syfy’s Being Human had its fourth season premiere which pulled a 0.5 rating with 1.3 million total viewers.  That’s right at the same place it ended last season and if it holds onto those numbers it should be okay.  But if it drops even to the 0.4 level it could have reason to worry.  Also on Monday Lost Girl returned for its fourth season and werewolf series Bitten had its debut.  Neither of those ranked in the Cable Top 100, though, but they are Canadian imports so their ratings on Syfy aren’t as closely tied to their fates (for the Monday broadcast network shows, see my previous Cancellation Watch column).  The only genre show for the week that did okay by the Nielsens was CBS entry Person of Interest which remained level at a 2.0 rating with 12.5 million total viewers.  That’s on par with where the show has been and the total viewer number will likely get it into the Top 10 once again.

A note for Beauty and the Beast fans: TV by the Numbers reported that The CW has indicated the show will return in May to finish airing its current season.  That will apparently be after The Tomorrow People moves into the Monday 9 PM EST timeslot beginning on March 17th.  The network mentioned that no decisions beyond that have been made about the fate of the show, but based on its current ratings it seems almost certain that it will get the axe at season end (but you never know for certain with The CW).

Here are the season to date numbers and standings through January 16th for all the shows that have bowed so far (sorted by most likely to get cancelled):

Keep an eye on the Cancellation Watch Twitter Site for the latest ratings numbers, and you can see the current status for all this season’s genre show at this link.  And for more information on the ratings numbers and how I determine the Cancellation Alert status of a show, see the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2013 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

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