Cancellation Watch: Could Supergirl Move to The CW? Plus the Ratings Roundup

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.

Moving Time? According to a comment in a recent article by Variety, CBS series Supergirl could be moving over to the fifth place network The CW next season.  This is one of those “sources” say comments, and the article did note that “a network insider shot down the speculation”.  So take all of that for what it is worth, which is not much at this point.  Supergirl launched pretty high in the ratings last Fall, but has since slipped in altitude and has been pulling modest at best numbers through its season finale.  As far as the logistics, the move would seem to make some sense as CBS and Warner Bros. own The CW and WB owns the series.  Plus, The CW already has an established universe based on the DC comic book characters with Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl was tangentially linked to that with the Flash cross-over episode.  But then previous talks of moving DC based Constantine from NBC to The CW were dismissed claiming the show cost too much.  A similar situation would exist with Supergirl because the Big Four nets tend to pour more money into their shows while the fifth place net tends to work with a smaller budget.  But then The CW has done quite a lot with the shows it has and it shares some of the same executive producers with Supergirl, so I’m thinking they could figure out the cost situation (possibly dumping the star power of Calista Flockhart and shrinking the cast).  There’s also the issue of The CW’s schedule being pretty crowded with the blanket renewal of all its shows (except Containment) and the other ones that network has in the works.  Plus, I was thinking that CBS might be trying to build a block of younger-skewing (by that net’s standards) shows which would include carryovers Supergirl and Scorpion plus the MacGuyver reboot that is in the pipeline.  So CBS may have an interest in keeping the superhero show on its schedule even though its numbers are down.  It is looking like we will go down to the wire on when we will find out for sure the fate of Supergirl, but all of that has to be worked out by the time of the Upfronts in two weeks when the network presents its schedule for the 2016-17 season (you can see the timing of that at this link).  So keep an eye on this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news, but know that it is more feasible for Supergirl to make the shift than it was for Constantine (though he could still make a return appearance to the Arrow-verse).

Ratings Results of Interest: On Sunday, Showtime’s Penny Dreadful pulled a 0.18 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 540k total viewers for its Season 3 premiere.  That’s slightly down from the 0.2 rating it averaged last year and the 0.3 score it had for its Season 2 finale.  That show continues to score decent buzz among the critics and fans, though, and the pay channels are not as concerned with the overnight numbers, so it may be okay for now.  Also on Sunday, HBO’s Game of Thrones slipped a bit to a 3.7 rating while AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead leveled off its decline and pulled a 2.2 score.  On Saturday, Starz’s Outlander held mostly steady at a 0.28 rating, and I expect to hear a renewal announcement on that one at any time. On Friday, Syfy’s Wynonna Earp rebounded from its season low the prior week to pull a 0.15 rating.  Those are still pretty low numbers, though, and I consider that one a Call to Action show.   I covered the Monday thru Thursday shows plus the scorecards in the Friday Cancellation Watch post at this link.

Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Monday April 25th thru Sunday May 1st (metric definitions below):

Links are to the show pages on this site where status updates and season to date numbers have been updated through Sunday.

Chart Activity: Game of Thrones slipped one notch in Weekly Nielsen Twitter Rating Top 10 to Number 4 for the week, pushed down by ESPN NFL draft coverage.  Game of Thrones remained at Number 1 in both the Cable Top 25 charts while Fear the Walking Dead slipped to Number 3 behind the draft. The Flash edged back into the broadcast net Top 25 for the week, right at the Number 25 slot.  Lucifer slipped out, though just barely at Number 26.  Supergirl has wrapped up its season.

(Updated  for the broadcast network and cable Top 25 chart activity)

Be sure keep an eye out for the latest numbers and any breaking news throughout the week at the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site. You can see the status of all the currently airing sci fi / fantasy shows at the Cancellation Watch page and also the latest Sci Fi TV Power Rankings post. 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:

Series: (R) indicates a repeat airing

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

% Chng: The percentage change +/- for this week’s rating vs. last week’s rating (if a new episode aired last week).

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.

Net Avg:  The season to date average rating for the network for non-sports, non-special, non-repeat programming.  This data is available for the broadcast networks only.

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.

Source: ShowBuzzDaily and TV by the Numbers