Cancellation Watch: What Are the Chances of Emergence, Evil, Batwoman, and More Broadcast Network Shows Surviving to a Second Season?

This is the first official week of the Fall season for the Broadcast networks, and viewers may be wondering what the survival chances are for the new shows arriving on the schedule. For sci fi and fantasy fans, there are only four new shows debuting this Fall, and two of those are on The CW. ABC’s Emergence and CBS’ Evil are the only two new genre entries on the Big Four networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) while The CW brings us Batwoman and Nancy Drew. All four of these have promise, and the first two have been receiving very good reviews thus far. But in the ever more crowded Peak TV environment, will they manage to beat the odds and get a second season renewal?

>Get the full rundown of the Fall 2019 sci fi can fantasy shows at this link

I have compiled the statistics on the new shows debuting on the broadcast networks going back to the 2010-11 season to see how likely they are to survive to a second season, a third, and beyond. Across that nine-season period, the average cancellation rate of new shows has been 59% across all shows and all networks. For sci fi and fantasy entries, the cancellation rate is lower–believe it or not–at only 53%. However, that factors in The CW (aka The Happy Network) which has a disproportionate number of genre entries and a much lower cancellation rate. The fifth-place net has only a 40% new show cancellation rate over the last nine seasons, and only 35% for sci fi and fantasy entries.

**The Passage** was cancelled by FOX last year after only one season

If you look at only the Big Four Broadcast networks, the cancellation rate of new shows is 61% over the past nine seasons. For sci fi / fantasy shows, that is slightly lower at 59% (and we all thought the old school networks were more likely to cancel genre entries!). If you break the numbers out between hour-long dramas and half-hour comedies, the former have a 58% cancellation rate while the latter have a notably higher 65% cancellation rate. Non-sci fi dramas on the Big Four nets have the lowest cancellation rates at 57%.

>See the full Fall 2019 schedule of sci fi and fantasy shows at this link

The cancellation rate has gone down over the past three seasons as the networks are changing their strategy and sticking with their shows despite ratings declines. They are also focusing more on having an ownership stake in shows so that they can reap the long-term profits. Over the past three seasons, the cancellation rate has been only fifty percent across all networks and all genres. For sci fi shows, it has been 48% and for the Big Four it has been 52% (with comedies skewing that number up).

Once a show has made it past its first season, what are its chances of it surviving to a third season or beyond? Over the past nine seasons, 11% of new shows have been cancelled after their second season and 5% after their third season. Only 7% of shows on the broadcast networks have made it to four seasons or more over that timeframe. For sci fi shows, the numbers are like this: 13% cancelled after 2 seasons, 3% cancelled after three seasons, and 13% surviving for four seasons or more.

Click on the chart to enlarge:

Last week, I looked at Netflix originals and showed that the streamer has a cancellation rate of only 20% after the first season, 13% for sci fi and fantasy entries. But then it has shorter episode orders and its shows rarely go much longer than three seasons (more on that at this link). So a Netflix show that runs for three seasons of eight to ten episodes will have only a slightly longer run than a broadcast network show that produces twenty-two episodes in a single season. There is good and bad to that, depending on how the creative team approaches the story, but it is just worth mentioning here.

Peak TV continues to take its toll, though it does appear that the broadcast networks–especially The CW–have been more reluctant to cancel shows the last few years. As more and more streaming services arrive (Disney+ and Apple TV+ launch this year with HBO Max and Peacock on the way in 2020), I expect some more fluctuation in these numbers. But the takeaway for now is that genre shows have about a 50/50 chance of surviving on the Big Four networks these days and even better on The CW (The Happy Net renewed almost all of its shows last year). I will continue to monitor these trends during the current season and also start looking at the cable channels. And I will be looking back at historical cancellation rates from the years past. So stay tuned to this site for updates and further analysis.