Cancellation Watch: The Last Ship Has Decent Debut, Plus Good Numbers for the Returns of True Blood, Falling Skies, and Teen Wolf

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11 years ago

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: Summer is starting to kick into high gear with four sci fi/fantasy shows debuting over the last few days and more in the queue over the coming weeks. TNT’s Michael Bay blockbuster series The Last Ship had its bow on Sunday night and it pulled a 1.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 5.3 million total viewers. That latter metric is the more impressive and the network definitely tried to play that up while combining the total viewers for the night’s encore airings on Sunday. The rating in the demo is good but not spectacular, and I’m thinking they would have liked it to be a few notches higher seeing as this is a pretty expensive entry. We will see how it tracks over the coming weeks, but expect TNT to be touting it as a hit for now. In the following hour, Falling Skies pulled a 1.0 rating with 3.7 million total viewers for its fourth season debut. Again, not spectacular numbers, but good enough to keep that one going for now. Over on HBO, True Blood had a 2.2 rating with four million total viewers for its Year 7 season premiere. That’s down a little from last season, but still quite good for a premium cable show. All three of the shows above made it into the cable Top 25 for the week which I will go into in more detail later this week. Over on Showtime, Penny Dreadful made it into the cable Top 100 for the night for the first time as it pulled a 0.4 rating with 800k total viewers, its best numbers yet. And on Monday, MTV’s Teen Wolf returned for its fourth season with a 0.9 rating and 2.2 million total viewers. Ratings-wise that is right at what it was averaging for the second half of its third season.

Below is a more detailed look at the ratings numbers and standings for this Summer’s genre shows following the new format that I will be using going forward. You can see the definition of the metrics tracked below the results.

True Blood (HBO Sun 9 PM)
Rating: 2.2 | Tot Viewers: 4.0 | StD Rating: 2.2 | Target: 1.5 | Cancellation Alert: Final Season

Not too far from last season’s numbers, but it’s the show’s final season anyway.

Penny Dreadful (SHOW Sun 9 PM)
Rating: 0.4 | Tot Viewers: 0.8 | StD Rating: 0.3 | Target: 0.4 | Cancellation Alert: Renewed

The numbers are edging up and the show’s buzz is as well.

The Last Ship (TNT Sun 9 PM)
Rating: 1.2 | Tot Viewers: 5.3 | StD Rating: 1.2 | Target: 1.0 | Cancellation Alert: Low

Not a blockbuster debut ratings-wise, but enough to keep ti afloat.

Falling Skies (TNT Sun 9 PM)
Rating: 1.0 | Tot Viewers: 3.7 | StD Rating: 1.0 | Target: 1.0 | Cancellation Alert: Low

It’s numbers are lower that last season, but still good enough for TNT.

Beauty and the Beast (CW Mon 9 PM)
Rating: 0.3 | Tot Viewers: 0.8 | StD Rating: 0.3 | Target: 1.0 | Cancellation Alert: Renewed

No better than its regular season numbers, but maybe not bad for a Summer run on the fifth place network?

Teen Wolf (MTV Mon 10 PM)
Rating: 0.9 | Tot Viewers: 2.2 | StD Rating: 0.9 | Target: 0.8 | Cancellation Alert: Low

Still excellent numbers for its network and it’s still generating plenty of buzz on the social networks.

The Wil Wheaton Project (Syfy Tue 10 PM) Prior Week Numbers
Rating: 0.2 | Tot Viewers: 0.4 | StD Rating: 0.2 | Target: 0.3 | Cancellation Alert: Moderate

I’m thinking Syfy would have preferred better numbers but maybe they are acceptable considering it is a low cost addition to their schedule. And some of the clips are getting regular attention on the internet.

Defiance (Syfy Thur 8 PM) Prior Week Numbers
Rating: 0.6 | Tot Viewers: 2.0 | StD Rating: 0.6 | Target: 0.6 | Cancellation Alert: Low

That’s a long way from the 1.0 rating this show pulled for its first season debut. Is the love gone for this one?

Dominion (Syfy Thur 9 PM) Prior Week Numbers
Rating: 0.6 | Tot Viewers: 2.0 | StD Rating: 0.6 | Target: 0.6 | Cancellation Alert: Low

It was an okay debut for this network, but that score doesn’t give it much leeway.

Rating: Overnight rating in the 18-49 demographic for same day viewing based on the final numbers unless otherwise noted

Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers to tune in to the episode for same day viewing

StD Rating: Season to date average for the rating metric tracked above.

Target: The estimated average rating that the show needs to sustain to get renewed.

Cancellation 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.

Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and The Futon Critic