Cancellation Watch Scorecard: Nightflyers Slips Further in the Rankings

Syfy’s new series Nightflyers wrapped up its first season last week (it was airing nightly, Sundays through Thursdays) with slipping ratings, and that caused the show to drop further in the rankings.  It is currently at the Number 21 slot, down from Number 18.  It is ranked one higher than Van Helsing which just got renewed, but Nightlfyers is a more expensive show to produce so I don’t like its chances at the moment.  Nat Geo’s Mars slipped to last place in the rankings as the ratings have been down notably for that one in its second year, but its success depends more on its global viewing stats.  Several of The CW shows dropped a slot or two this week which was a result of the Elseworlds crossover ticking up that network’s average.  The Flash did not get the benefit of that since its ratings held steady and several of the non-Arrow-verse shows took a slight hit.  But that should smooth out once the shows return with new episodes in January. Most of the rest of the movement for the week was just incidental. For the ratings coverage from this past week, be sure to check out our latest Weekly Roundup post.

The Scorecard will be taking a break for a couple of weeks while most of the network’s shows are on hiatus.  It will resume the second week of January since Mid-Season kicks off at the beginning of year.

The scorecard ranks all of the sci fi and fantasy shows’ ratings performance vs. their network’s ratings benchmark (see metric definitions below).  Shows at or above their benchmark should be okay, whereas those slipping notably below are getting into iffy territory.

Scorecard rankings based on the ratings through December 16th:

Metric Definitions:

Rank (PW): Current rank based on the variance of a show’s season to date ratings average vs. its network’s benchmark (see definition below).  The number in parenthesis is the prior week’s rank.  Note that shows on the streaming services are not included because of insufficient viewership data and foreign imports like Doctor Who will not be included because they rely more heavily on their viewership in their home countries.

Series: (O) indicates the show is owned or co-owned by the network and/or a sister studio. (F) indicates the show airs on Friday when ratings expectations are lower on the broadcast networks.

StD Avg:  The show’s season to date ratings average based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic.

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.  But note that with cable entries intangibles such as international and/or streaming partnerships can play an important factor in a show’s survival and that is not measured here.

% Var:  The percent variance between a show’s season to date average and the network benchmark as defined above.  The higher the variance, the better a show is performing vs. the benchmark.

Status: My assessment of the likelihood that a show will get renewed or cancelled. The statuses are Renewal Likely, Renewal Possible, On the Bubble, Cancellation Likely (plus Renewed and Cancelled/Ended)

Ratings Source: ShowBuzzDaily and TV by the Numbers