Television’s mid-season report card
Newbies Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Blacklist stand apart in the pack
The strongest starters in a weak field have already been given a second wind, and several slow starters have already been pulled from the race. Two months into the 201314 fall season, TV’s cloudy primetime picture has become slightly clearer — though, as always, a quick glance at the most-watched TV programs in any given week shows that general audiences still favour old reliables over untested rookies.
Across-Canada ratings for the most recent week during the November sweeps period show The Big Bang Theory, Hockey Night in Canada, NCIS, CSI, Criminal Minds and The Amazing Race running at the front of the pack, in that order. More than 3.5 million viewers are now tuning in to The Big Bang Theory each week — Stanley Cup finals numbers.
Amazing Race continues to confound pre-season predictions. An average two million viewers are tuning in each week, good enough to keep Race firmly in the Top 5 for CTV. Race performs better in Canada than it does in the U.S. where, even in a good week, Race is lucky if it draws even 10 million viewers, this in a country with 10 times the population.
Amazing Race aside, the numbers show a number of other marked differences between the two countries.
NHL hockey performs as well here as NFL football does in the U.S. — no surprise, there — and the second-year superhero thriller Arrow is a Top 25 program in Canada, but not so much in the U.S. That’s in part because Arrow, filmed in Vancouver, airs on a proper network, CTV, whereas it airs on the lightly viewed CW in the U.S., a network that reaches fewer homes than the Big Four: NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox.
CBC, too, is having a respectable fall season by the admittedly low measure of recent fall seasons. The weekly ratings for Nov. 4-10 show that two non-hockey CBC programs, Dragons’ Den and The Fifth Estate, cracked the Top 30. CBC uses its high-rated hockey telecasts to promote other prime-time programs, but Dragons’ Den and Fifth Estate in a good week — which is to say any week featuring Toronto Mayor Rob Ford — show signs of being capable of standing on their own.
Tellingly, of the fall crop of more than 30 new network programs, just two — Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Blacklist — cracked the Top 30 that same week. S.H.I.E.L.D. drew 1.6 million viewers and Blacklist drew 1.4 million. Both programs have shed viewers from their heavily promoted premières, and it will be several weeks before the dust clears enough to determine where they stand in TV’s big picture, but one thing is already evident: In a fall season starved for new hits, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Blacklist stand apart from the pack.
Of the fall season’s new programs, dramas have outperformed comedies overall, but only by a slight margin. The seasons early casualties include a pair of dramas — Ironside and Lucky 7, cancelled after just two outings — and a brace of comedies: We Are Men, Welcome to the Family and the James Caan-starring Back in the Game.
New comedies Mom, Sean Saves the World, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Dads, The Millers, The Crazy Ones, The Goldbergs, Super Fun Night and Trophy Wife have all been extended for the full season.
The Michael J. Fox Show was guaranteed a full 22 episodes before it aired, but that doesn’t mean it will be back for a second season next year. Cancellation and renewal decisions for all new series will be made in May.
Of this year’s new dramas, Hostages was guaranteed a full 15-episode run before it debuted, but it now seems unlikely it will be back for a second term. Similarly, Betrayal has been promised a short run but almost certainly will not be back once it finishes its limited run.
The Blacklist and S.H.I.E.L.D. are almost certain to be picked up for second seasons, even though their numbers have dipped in recent weeks. Sleeper hit Sleepy Hollow, meanwhile, has already earned official renewal for a second season.
Other new dramas guaranteed the full season — but not beyond, necessarily — include The Originals, The Tomorrow People and the filmed-inToronto Reign. The jury is still out on the filmed-in-Vancouver Almost Human, but early signs for its success are positive: Human racked up credible, competitive numbers for its late-in-the-season debut on Nov. 17.
Of the new programs, perhaps none better illustrates the increasingly complicated nature of the network TV business than the filmedin-Vancouver Once Upon a Time spinoff, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.
Early numbers, already flat, have dipped even more in recent weeks, especially in the United States, where Wonderland finished behind The Vampire Diaries one recent week. That’s telling, because Wonderland airs on ABC, one of the Big Four networks, whereas Vampire Diaries airs on the smaller, harder-to-find CW.
The playing field is more even in Canada, where Vampire Diaries airs on CTV subsidiary CTV Two and Wonderland airs on Rogersowned City, but still: On a strictly numbers level, it’s a wonder Wonderland hasn’t been cancelled yet.
There’s more at stake than mere numbers, though.
The rights to many of the fairytale characters in both Wonderland and Once Upon a Time are owned by the Walt Disney Co., which also owns ABC. Disney’s interests include theme parks and a major mov- ie studio, not just a TV network. It’s in Disney’s corporate interests to go to the wall for Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, regardless of ratings. More than any other Hollywood studio, Disney trades in corporate synergy — spinning off popular fairytale characters across its broad spectrum of theme parks, movies and TV series.
Cancellation and renewal decisions can and do depend on other factors on occasion, such as a program’s cost to make, its socialmedia profile, its potential for future growth, how much its numbers grow when PVR viewing is factored into the equation, and the time-period competition. Once Upon a Time in Wonderland airs on one of the most crowded, competitive nights of the TV week, directly opposite the most popular, most-watched program on TV — The Big Bang Theory.
If the fall season has taught anything so far, it’s that some cancellation decisions are self-evident — We Are Men, Welcome to the Family — but others, like Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, are harder to discern.
The other, perhaps more meaningful trend is that while comedy renewals outpace drama renewals, in terms of the number of shows, it’s the new dramas, not the new comedies, that are riding higher in the ratings and show the most breakout potential. That’s why Sleepy Hollow has already earned a second season, even though it’s only November, and why the future for new comedies featuring big-name stars like Robin Williams, Sean Hayes and Michael J. Fox looks uncertain beyond the new year.