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.
Final Season: NBC announced late yesterday that their supernatural procedural Grimm will be coming to an end with its sixth season. That news comes as no surprise seeing as the show slipped to all-time ratings lows in its fifth season. But since it has already made it past the syndication stretch, the network was guaranteed to recoup its costs on one more season once it hits its encore run. It was only renewed for thirteen episodes and I predicted at the time that would likely be its last. That was confirmed with yesterday’s announcement, but at least the show gets a chance to go out on its own terms. I’m sure that hard core fans would have liked for it to stick around a while longer, but surviving for six seasons and over one hundred episodes is a pretty rare thing for a genre show in the currently overcrowded television environment. The show will wrap up with 123 total episodes and will continue to live on in syndication reruns for years to come. NBC also announced Grimm‘s return date which will be at mid-season on January 6th, though it will be airing one hour earlier than it previously did at 8 PM EST.
Series Premiere: Along with the news on Grimm above, NBC finally announced a premiere date for their Wizard of Oz reboot series Emerald City. That show will bow the same day as Grimm‘s sixth season return (January 6th) with a two hour debut starting at 9 PM EST. That project has been on and off since it was first announced back on 2014, so I wasn’t certain if it would ever hit the schedule. And I am sure that the network is hoping that Grimm will pass the Friday night torch to the new series, but then the veteran show has lost much of the audience it used to attract to that night. And the high-concept (and likely high cost) premise of Emerald City does not sound like a particularly good fit for the end of the week schedule. FOX and CBS are also trying out genre shows on that night with The Exorcist and MacGyver set to debut there this Fall, and I’m not certain that’s going to work too well either. Emerald City has been in development for NBC for a while and I’m sure they have put a lot of money into it. But the current scheduling will do little to help it find success when it finally does debut.
Ratings Results of Interest: On Sunday, FX’s The Strain returned for its third season at a 0.62 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 1.4 million total viewers. That’s lower than its Season 2 debut but right even with its overall average from last year, so it looks to be okay for now. AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead held mostly steady at a 1.6 rating with 3.7 million total viewers despite the competition from MTV’s VMAs. TNT’s The Last Ship slipped to a 0.50 rating with 2.5 million total viewers for the night. On Friday, Syfy’s Killjoys and Dark Matter posted the best numbers they have seen in a while with the former show pulling a 0.20 rating with 680k total viewers and the latter improving to a season high 0.22 rating with 760k total viewers. Syfy has a partnership with the Canadian Space Channel on both of these shows and word is that their numbers are good up north, so I like their chances of surviving into a third season.
Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Monday August 22nd thru Sunday August 28th (metric definitions below):
(Links are to the show pages on this site with season to date ratings results and status updates)
| Series | Airs | Rating | % Chng | Tot Viewers | STD Avg | Net Avg | Cancel Alert |
| Zoo | CBS, Tue 10 PM | 0.8 | +14.3% | 4.8 | 0.7 | 1.5 | Renewed |
| Scream | MTV, Tue 10 PM | Season Ended | n/a | n/a | 0.2 | n/a | Low |
| Mr Robot | USA, Wed 10 PM | 0.3 | +20.0% | 0.7 | 0.3 | n/a | Renewed |
| Beauty and the Beast | CW, Thu 9 PM | 0.2 | n/a | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.6 | Final Season |
| Killjoys | Syfy, Fri 9 PM | 0.2 | +17.6% | 0.7 | 0.2 | n/a | Moderate |
| Dark Matter | Syfy, Fri 10 PM | 0.2 | +15.8% | 0.8 | 0.2 | n/a | Moderate |
| Fear the Walking Dead | AMC, Sun 9 PM | 1.6 | -1.9% | 3.7 | 2.1 | n/a | Renewed |
| The Last Ship | TNT, Sun 9 PM | 0.5 | -12.3% | 2.5 | 0.5 | n/a | Renewed |
| Braindead | CBS, Sun 10 PM | 0.3 | 0.0% | 2.3 | 0.4 | 1.5 | Elevated |
| The Strain | FX, Sun 10 PM | 0.6 | n/a | 1.4 | 0.0 | n/a | Low |
Chart Activity: Fear the Walking Dead fell out of the Weekly Nielsen Twitter Rating Top 10 for the week, which was the first time it did not place there since it debuted last year. That show was at Number 2 in the cable top 25 behind the VMAs on MTV, but it was at Number 3 in the chart based on total viewers behind TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles and Major Crimes. That’s the first time that I recall FtWD falling notably behind other scripted cable entries on that chart (last week it was just barely behind Rizzoli & Isles). TNT’s The Last Ship improved to Number 20 (up from Number 22) on the cable Top 25 based on total viewers. And Zoo remained at Number 24 on the broadcast net Top 25 based on total viewers.
(Updated for the broadcast network and cable Top 25 chart activity)
| Series | Chart | Curr Wk Rank | Prior Wk Rank |
| Fear the Walking Dead | Nielsen Twitter Ratings Top 10 | n/a | 10 |
| Fear the Walking Dead | Cable Top 25 (18-49 Demo) | 2 | 1 |
| Fear the Walking Dead | Cable Top 25 (Total Viewers) | 3 | 2 |
| The Last Ship | Cable Top 25 (Total Viewers) | 20 | 22 |
| Zoo | Broadcast Net Top 25 (Total Viewers) | 24 | 24 |
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
