Cancellation Watch: Tracking the weekly ratings and the cancellation prospects of the science fiction and fantasy shows currently airing on broadcast and cable networks.
By John J. Joex
More renewal/cancellation announcements are rolling in as FOX has begun to set their schedule for next season. The Tim Kring/Kiefer Sutherland collaboration Touch received a pickup for a second season despite the downward ratings trend that show has seen the last month and more. The series started out with a strong 3.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic for its preview episode back in January. But once it began its regular run in March, its numbers dropped almost every week, though it did level off a bit (at a 2.0) this past Thursday. Not as lucky was the J.J. Abrams series Alcatraz, which received its walking papers yesterday. That series also started out with good ratings and actually remained stable in its first few weeks before it began to see a pretty steep drop off. The series ended its first season in March after averaging only a 1.6 rating in the 18-49 demo for its last four episodes. Apparently between Touch and Alcatraz, FOX felt the former had more potential going into next season and decided to cut ties with the latter. It’s unlikely that another network would make a reach for Alcatraz, though it’s not impossible the Netflix could step in to save the show. However, the streaming service is already pretty busy with negotiations to pick up ABC’s The River and also for a possible revival of Jericho, so they may not decide to pass on the J.J. Abrams show.
FOX also announced some pickups for next season which included the Kevin Bacon/Kevin Williamson serial killer drama Following which may have some genre elements. There are still more announcements to come as we head into the upfronts next week when the broadcast networks will finalize their schedules for the coming season, so stay tuned for breaking news. And you can see the status of all of this season’s genre shows at our Cancellation Watch page.
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