Cancellation Watch: The CW’s iZombie Looks Good for a Second Season Renewal, but Could The Messengers be This Year’s Star-Crossed?

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10 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 for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Monday Apr 13th thru Wednesday Apr 15th (analysis and metric definitions below):

Note: The Monday broadcast network shows were covered in the previous Cancellation Watch post

It’s holding steady. Steadily low, that is. If the international financing is there, it could get a second season, otherwise one and done.

This one looks to be building back up for a strong first season wrap up, and it continues to nip at the heals of its ABC superhero competition Agents of SHIELD.

Its numbers improved and I’m thinking that its prospects are looking better. More on that at this link.

It improved from last week and it is looking good for a second season renewal. (More on this one below).

Preempted. It airs a new episode next week, then another week off then it has its season (and looking like series) finale on May 5th.

Keep it on the air and its numbers go up. Imagine that!

It was up from its last original episode and now runs straight thru to its season finale on May 13th.

This one also improved from its last original episode. It’s season finale is on April 29th.

Renewal Prospects: Last year The CW had two genre shows debut at mid-season and one of those (The 100) survived into a second year while the second (Star-Crossed) was sent for a date with the Network Executioner. And this year I believe we are looking at a similar scenario with new entry iZombie close to locking up a second season renewal while The Messengers (which debuts Fridays) looking like it may arrive DOA. iZombie premiered last month to decent numbers for the fifth place network and has managed to hold steady for its subsequent episodes. Its debut drew a 0.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic based on the overnights and it only slipped slightly after that to a 0.7 score for several weeks and this last Tuesday it improved to back to the 0.8 level. Considering that The 100 had dropped to the 0.5 ratings level by its fourth episode last season and still got renewed, it seems like a no-brainer that iZombie will get renewed this year (pun intended for fans of the show). As for The Messengers, it’s looking like The CW may have given up on that one before it even started seeing as they pushed its debut to late Spring (when the broadcast networks are already winding down the season) and also scheduled it for low-viewership Fridays. The network did a similar thing with Star-Crossed last year when they scheduled that show on Mondays which had pretty much become a cast-off night for them before The Originals revitalized (at least a little bit) this year. Star-Crossed debuted to poor numbers and ended up getting cancelled (as I predicted last year before it began), and The Messengers looks headed for a similar fate this season. That show’s debut numbers will give us a good indication of its fate (keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site on Saturday morning for those), but it will have to pull off an impressive performance on that night (unlikely) to have any chance at renewal consideration. And considering that The CW renewed all of its Fall shows this year and that iZombie will almost certainly get another season as well, plus everything the network currently has in development, the chances that The Messengers will find a spot on the schedule next season seem slim at best. It will continue running into the Summer season because of its late start, though, so if it does well enough then, maybe the CW will consider it as a Summer entry to pair it with low-rated Beauty and the Beast–which has already received a fourth season renewal. I’m thinking that’s a longshot, though, and it could end up Network Executioner fodder by May if its numbers are too low.

Be sure keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for the latest numbers and any breaking news throughout the week. You can see the status of all the currently airing sci fi / fantasy shows at the Cancellation Watch page. And for more information on where I get these numbers and how I make my Cancellation Alert assessments, check out the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

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Metric Definitions:

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

% Chng PW: The percentage change +/- for this week’s rating vs. last week’s rating.

Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers (age 2+) 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.

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Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and ShowBuzzDaily