Upfronts Preview Pt. 1: Will Your Favorite Shows be Canceled or Renewed?

Upfronts is the annual presentation each year in New York City in early May where the 5 major broadcast networks pitch their schedule for the upcoming television season to ad buyers and try to sell the bulk of their commercial time and also to start creating buzz for their new shows. So it’s usually (but not always) the deadline by which executives decide to cancel/renew shows (although it’s usually decided sooner, but it’s public and official at Upfronts). While cable networks (and increasingly, websites with digital shows) have been getting in on the action with their own upfronts presentation, I’ll focus on the Big 4 (+CW).

In Part 1, I’ll look at the current shows. Many of them have already been renewed/canceled, but there’s about two handfuls of those still on the bubble. Next week I’ll look at some of the pilots in consideration to become next season’s new shows and see which ones sound interesting.

Bold=Renewed/Cancelled Otherwise just speculation

ABC
Another season, another 3rd/4th-place finish. Since it’s Desperate Housewives-Lost-Grey’s Anatomy heyday, ABC has lost a LOT of ground. It has a very small handful of hits, but they are oases in a mostly barren desert. Perhaps this is why, while the other networks have issued a lot of renewals already, ABC hasn’t announced the fate of any of its shows. Let’s look at how their shows will probably shake out.
Likely Renewal:
-Modern Family Of course, it’s their top-rated show
-Scandal Their top-rated drama
-Grey’s Anatomy Yes this show is still on and while it’s dropped from its peak seasons, it still pulls in solid ratings. And it shuffles old cast members out and new ones in often enough to swap out the old faces (with more expensive contracts) for new ones (who cost less)
-Revenge Rule of Syndication: When a show hits 3 seasons of ≈22 episodes each, they only need one more full season to hit enough episodes to enter the lucrative syndication market. If a show gets 3 full seasons, they are practically guaranteed a 4th season, even if the ratings are lousy. Revenge will get a 4th season for that sweet, sweet syndication money
-Once Upon a Time See above
-The Middle It gets lost in the shuffle of ABC’s other, more high-profile shows, but The Middle has been steadily chugging along for 5 seasons, and it has beaten/tied American Idol a couple times this season in the 18-49 rating/total viewership this season. It’ll come back to continue anchoring ABC’s Wednesday night comedy line-up
-Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Started off hot, has dropped off QUITE a bit since. It’s averaged a decent enough level for ABC to give it another shot (helps that ABC’s other new dramas have fallen flat), plus that sweet sweet Marvel synergy (Disney owns Marvel & ABC)
-Castle A steady performer
-Dancing with the Stars ” “
-The Goldbergs One of the few new ABC shows this season that has steadily drawn viewers. Not a huge amount, but a decent-enough number consistently
-Last Man Standing 3 full seasons=It will get one more to get to syndication
-Shark Tank One of ABC’s better performers, and it’s a cheaper reality show, it’ll be back

Toss-Up:
-Resurrection This show started off with very strong ratings but has fallen off sharply since then, dropping with every episode (because the show’s mediocre at best). If the ratings stabilize it’s viable for another season, if not…
-Suburgatory It’s at 3 seasons BUT its 3rd season was only 13 episodes long which means even with a full season renewal it will still fall short of the number of episodes needed to hit syndication. It’s ratings aren’t a disaster but still consistently drop off from its The Middle lead-in. ABC has a lot of holes to patch up so they may decided to leave this be for now and pick it up for another half(/full) season while they try to plug bigger holes in their schedule
-Nashville A true toss-up. See what I said about a show getting 3 seasons practically guaranteeing them a 4th. So if Nashville gets picked up for a 3rd season that pretty much means it’ll get a 4th season. Nashville’s ratings bounces around from cancellation-area low 1’s to doable mid-to-high 1’s. Seeing as how a tour for the show’s stars was recently announced, I imagine ABC will give this show another go, but it’s hard to tell with a show whose ratings routinely flirts with cancellation-level ratings

Likely Cancellation:
-Super Fun Night Awful in every way imaginable, didn’t get picked up for a full season after its initial 13 episodes (it got a discouraging 4 episode pick-up)
-Mixology Not as terrible as its concept and title would suggest, still, it’s dropping off a ton from it’s Modern Family lead-in and getting to Super Fun Night numbers, also ABC schedules new episodes of it when the rest of their Wednesday night line-up are in repeats, not an encouraging sign
-Trophy Wife This show was warmly received by critics (a lot better than its awful title suggests, it’s more of a Modern Family-lite), but has sunken to ratings firmly in the cancellation zone. ABC may turn around and surprised everyone with a renewal, but from purely a ratings standpoint, that’s highly, highly unlikely
-The Neighbors

CBS
CBS has given renewals to the vast majority of its shows already, the handful of shows that didn’t get a renewal probably won’t be seeing one
Renewed:
-The Big Bang Theory Renewed for 3 additional seasons taking it through 2016-17
-60 Minutes
-The Good Wife Thank God, I’ve recently really got into this show and would hate for it to get axed right when I was getting into it during one of its apparently strongest seasons
-2 Broke Girls
-Mike & Molly
-Mom
-NCIS
-NCIS: Los Angeles
-Person of Interest
-Survivor 2 more seasons
-Criminal Minds
-CSI
-The Millers
-Two and a Half Men
-Elementary
-Undercover Boss
-Hawaii Five-0
-Blue Bloods

Likely Cancellation:
-The Crazy Ones CBS’s weakest comedy from a ratings stand-point. I’ll be a bit sad to see it go but CBS will likely let it go and see if it can do better with a new show. Also doesn’t jive well with the rest of CBS’s multi-cam, laugh-track comedies
-The Mentalist It’s an older show (i.e. pricier to produce), gets very modest ratings, and (most damningly) wasn’t included in CBS’s slew of renewals.
-Friends with Better Lives It’s only had 2 episodes so far with its premiere following the series finale of How I Met Your Mother so it’s hard to tell. It couldn’t cash in on the massive HIMYM finale and ratings dropped off massively from HIMYM to FwBL and if it can’t get a good viewership with that lead-in, it will probably only go downhill from here on out. It doesn’t look optimistic
-Hostages, Intelligence They were both promoted as ‘limited series,’ if they did well they could be picked up for another season (i.e. Under the Dome), they both did miserably. They will not be returning

FOX
I’ll have a lot to say about FOX in the 3rd part when I talk about how I would schedule their 2014-15 season if I had control. FOX has crashed and burned hard this season, about 40% of its schedule was singing competitions and that over-reliance was good when the times were good during the heyday of American Idol, but it has fallen to Earth (and then some) and X-Factor never took off and was canceled so they have a LOT of real estate to fill for the upcoming television season.
Renewed:
-Bob’s Burgers
*American Dad! Will move to TBS for its next season
-The Simpsons
-Sleepy Hollow
-The Following
-Brooklyn Nine-Nine
-New Girl
-The Mindy Project
-Glee
-Bones
-MasterChef Junior
-MasterChef
-Family Guy

Toss-Up:
-Almost Human Its ratings weren’t particularly great, but wasn’t in cancellation territory either. That it wasn’t included in the slew of renewals FOX has handed out makes it seem like FOX will let this one go away quietly, buuut its ratings are on par with The Following (which got renewed) and they have at least 3 hours to fill come fall, I would renew it if I were FOX
-Surviving Jack Based on the two episodes I’ve seen, it’s not terrible (reminds me of The Goldbergs). It’s ratings aren’t great, but relative to FOX’s other comedies as of late, it’s about average. It’s only aired 4 episodes so it depends if it can maintain that level or if it falls off

Likely Cancellation/Canceled:
-Raising Hope 😦 R.I.P. Raising Hope, a charming, consistently good show that flew under the radar for 4 seasons. I’ll miss you Chance Family, Burt & Virgina 4ever
-Dads It got 5 episodes tacked on to its original 13-episode order instead of a full renewal and its last 2 episodes were burned off during the Olympics. Despite what seemed like universal hate of this show, it actually pulled in fairly decent numbers (on par with Brooklyn Nine-Nine). I wouldn’t be surprised if it were renewed despite its short season and universal scorn.
-Rake When you get demoted from a plum post-American Idol time slot to Friday and then again to Saturday, you’re gonna get canceled
-Enlisted It got pulled after its 9th episode with the rest of its episodes to be ‘aired at an unspecified future date,’ that is not what you do with a show that’s not going to get canceled

CW
Renewed/Likely Renewal:
-Supernatural
-The Vampire Diaries
-Arrow
-The Originals
-Reign
-Hart of Dixie Refer above to ABC’s Revenge about syndication

Toss-Up:
-The Tomorrow People Started off well enough after a strong Arrow lead-in, quickly shed viewers and is straddling the line between toss-up territory and cancellation
-The 100 Same as above

Likely Cancellation:
-The Carrie Diaries, Star-Crossed Terrible ratings, even by CW standards, nowhere near close to getting a syndication-ready number of episodes
-Beauty and the Beast Same as above with the addition of having its last 5 episodes pulled off the schedule to be burned off during summer, not something you do with a show you plan on renewing

NBC
Renewed/Likely Renewal:
-The Blacklist
-Chicago Fire
-Chicago PD
-Grimm
-The Voice
-Parks and Recreation
-About a Boy Granted its lead-in is The Voice, but it’s still NBC’s highest-rated comedy
-Growing Up Fisher Same as above except 2nd-highest rated comedy
-Law & Order: SVU It’s an older (aka pricier) show, so there’s been some speculation whether or not it’ll return. It helps anchors NBC’s Wednesday night and still performs decently, I don’t see NBC feeling comfortable enough with its schedule to give that up right now even if it’s expensive to make

Toss-Up:
-Community Of course Community is on the bubble. Relative to other NBC comedies, Community has been just barely strong enough to earn a renewal in seasons past, its edge has been cut ever thinner/disappeared with its past couple of episodes. It’s earning ratings on par with where Michael J. Fox Show/Sean Saves the World/Welcome to the Family were at when they were canceled. It’s reached enough episodes for syndication, this may be the season Community doesn’t escape cancellation. At least on NBC. I’d say Comedy Central picks up Community if NBC cancels it (they picked up rights to rerun Community really early and have saved Futurama from cancellation in the past) and helps it fulfill its question for #sixseasonsandamovie
-Hannibal, Dracula Both these shows are international co-productions, which means it’s a lot, lot cheaper to make. Which is good because these shows get dreadful ratings (even on the lower standards of Friday night). This all comes down to whether the low costs of the shows can offset the low ratings. Dracula earns slightly lower ratings than Hannibal and Hannibal has received critical acclaim (its second season has been SO solid). I’d say NBC cuts Dracula and brings back Hannibal for another season, but wouldn’t be particularly surprised if they both come back (or get canceled, though I will mourn for Hannibal if that is the case)
-Revolution It’s ratings have been just a hair above cancellation territory, seeing as how it’s in its 2nd season, if it gets renewed for a full 3rd season, NBC is basically on the hook for a 4th season (syndication money, remember), I don’t think they want to saddle themselves with a low-performed for that long
-Parenthood Pretty much in the identical situation as Community, borderline-cancellation territory show for 5 seasons, well-received by critics, ratings have dropped every season but was saved by its ratings relative to the rest of NBC’s schedule, but this season might be the one it finally bites the dust

Canceled/Likely Cancellation:
-The Michael J. Fox Show
-Ironside
-Sean Saves the World
-Welcome to the Family
-Crisis, Believe It’s fallen to terrible ratings