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 for the Friday through Monday sci fi / fantasy shows:
Series Debut: NBC’s horror/crime series Hannibal returned for its second season on Friday with decent enough numbers for its timeslot, though nothing spectacular. The show’s Season 2 premiere pulled a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 3.3 million total viewers. On the bright side, that is better than where it ended its first season. But I am sure that the NBC execs would have preferred to see that show pull numbers closer to what Grimm is averaging in the lead-in hour (around a 1.5 rating). Still, apparently the financing for Hannibal makes it a cheaper series for the network and it has a pretty strong social network presence, so numbers in that range might just keep it alive in its late Friday timeslot. Some of these additional factors mentioned make it hard to actually predict what the network will do with the show based on the ratings, and seemingly it should have been cancelled in its first year, so I am going to keep it at its current bubble status and a Moderate Cancellation Alert and will probably not touch it again till we hear the final word on its fate late season.
The Hot Seat: The preemptions and strong competition that Almost Human has been dealing with since returning at mid-season seem to have done that show in as it bowed out on a low note on Monday. The series finale pulled its lowest rating yet with a 1.5 score in the 18-49 demo and 5.6 million total viewers. Now it is a waiting game for that one as we have to see if the FOX execs will factor in all the hurdles the show had to overcome in its short run this season and give it a second chance to prove itself next year. CBS series Intelligence continued to lag in the ratings as well, pulling another 1.2 score with 5.4 million total viewers. That one has been getting its total viewer numbers up over ten million when DVR viewing is factored in, though, and it has had its share of scheduling challenges as well. Whether that will impact the decision-making of the CBS execs remains to be seen.
CW Monday laggers Star-Crossed and Beauty and the Beast continued to perform poorly with their latest episodes. The former series actually improved its numbers a tick to a 0.4 rating with 1.1 million total viewers, but that hardly can be counted as a win for this almost assuredly doomed series. The latter series pulled another 0.3 score with 870k total viewers and seems surely headed to the end of its run. On Friday, ABC’s The Neighbors slipped a tick from its last new episode, pulling a 1.0 rating with 4.3 million total viewers as it continues to struggle in its current timeslot. And Syfy’s Helix slipped a tick to a 0.4 rating with 1.3 million total viewers as its future continues to look uncertain.
Other Ratings News: The Walking Dead slipped again on Sunday to a 6.4 rating in the 18-49 demo with 12.6 million total viewers and it lost out the night and the week to the Oscars. Still, TWD was second only to the coverage of that event as it beat out everything else on the cable and broadcast channels based on ratings. On Monday, MTV’s Teen Wolf continued to hold steady as it pulled another 0.9 rating with 2.1 million total viewers. And on Syfy, cancelled series Being Human slipped a tick to a 0.4 rating with right at one million total viewers. On Friday, NBC’s Grimm slipped slightly to a 1.4 rating with 5.3 million total viewers. That one is still performing well overall for its timeslot, though.
Keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for the latest ratings results as well as any updates or breaking news. You can see the current status for all this season’s genre shows 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 and The Futon Critic
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2014 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
