Cancellation Watch: MacGyver Top Among Friday / Sunday Premieres, 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.

Premieres: On Friday, the MacGyver reboot on CBS pulled a 1.7 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with an impressive 10.9 million total viewers for its debut.  Those are very good numbers for a Friday show these days, but then reboots and revivals tend to have the “curious onlooker” effect for their premieres and then typically drop pretty sharply with their second episode.  The results for this coming Friday’s airing should give us a better gauge of where the show stands.  FOX unfortunately did not see many curious onlooker’s for its reboot of The Exorcist, even though that one has drawn some decent reviews.  It bowed with only a 1.0 rating and 2.9 million total viewers which gives it very little room for slippage.  Syfy’s new vampire-pocalypse series Van Helsing had its official debut on Friday and pulled a 0.22 rating with 890k total viewers.  Those are decent numbers for Syfy these days and has the show just above that network’s benchmark (more on that at this link).  That show did have a second hour to its premiere that started at 11 PM EST and pulled a 0.18 rating with 830k total viewers, but I’m not going to count that into its average because it aired outside of Prime Time and because Syfy did the two eps because the premiere episode had a special preview this past Summer after Sharknado 4.  On Saturday, Disney XD’s Star Wars Rebels had a 0.16 rating with 560k total viewers for its Season 3 premiere.  But that one relies on merchandising as much as ratings for its survival and will stick around as long as Disney wants to keep cranking out episodes (and the toy sales are good).  On Sunday, ABC’s Once Upon A Time returned at a 1.3 rating with four million total viewers, which is just slightly above where it ended last season.  But when the expected downward trend starts, this one could find itself below a 1.0 within a month or so.  Disney will have to think long and hard on whether it is worth keeping this one around with numbers that low.  Over on FOX, The Last Man on Earth returned at a 0.9 rating with 2.2 million total viewers which matches its series low and makes it also one of lowest rated FOX shows this Fall thus far.  That show has spent a lot of time on the bubble, so we will have to see if can survive a third season at that status.  I covered the early week premieres previously at this link.

Ratings Results of Interest:  On Friday, Syfy’s Z Nation improved slightly from its Season 3 premiere, pulling a 0.31 rating with one million total viewers.  It still ranks as the highest rated show on that network for the past year and looks on track for a fourth season renewal.  On Sunday, FOX’s Son of Zorn took a big tumble from its debut pulling a 1.1 rating with 2.7 million total viewers in its regular timeslot.  The decline was expected without football overrun as its lead-in, but it fell notably from its Simpsons lead-in score of a 1.4 rating and was also below its Family Guy lead-out of a 1.3 rating.  That timeslot originally looked like a cozy one for the show, but at this point SoZ appears to be squandering it. Over on AMC, Fear the Walking Dead slipped a bit to a 1.5 rating with 3.5 million total viewers. But that is still good considering the competition it is up against and it tied for the highest rated scripted show on all of television for the night. The Strain held steady at a 0.40 rating with 880k total viewers.  I covered the early week ratings previously at this link.

Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Monday September 19th thru Sunday September 25th (metric definitions below):

(Links are to the show pages on this site with season to date ratings results and status updates)

Chart Activity: FX’s American Horror Story slipped to Number 6 in the Weekly Nielsen Social Rating Top 10 (Facebook trending has now been added) which was down from the Number 2 ranking for its premiere.  That show improved to Number 2 (up from Number 3) in the cable Top 25 based on the overnights for the 18-49 demo and slipped to Number 7 (down from Number 3) in the cable Top 25 based on total viewers. Fear the Walking Dead improved to Number 3 (up from Number 4) the cable Top 25 based on the demo and held at Number 5 based on total viewers.  MacGyver was at Number 13 in the broadcast net top 25 based on total viewers for its debut.

(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 and Facebook Page. You can see the status of all the currently airing sci fi / fantasy shows at the Cancellation Watch page and also the latest Cancellation Watch Hit List 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 Bench (Network Benchmark):  For the broadcast networks, this is the net’s season to date average rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic for non-sports, non-special, non-repeat broadcasts.  For the cable channels, this is the lowest level at which a show is typically renewed by that network if there are enough genre entries on that channel to provide a decent sample.

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