FOX Renew/Cancel Watch: A Look Ahead At Comedy Tuesday

The Ratings Junkie

Cancelled	Certatin to be Cancelled	Likely to be Cancelled	Watching	Likely to be Renewed	Certain to be Renewed	Renewed
Minority Report	Sleepy Hollow	The Grinder	Scream Queens		Empire	The Simpsons
		Grandfathered	The Last Man on Earth		Family Guy	Bob’s Burgers
		Bones			Gotham
					Brooklyn 9-9
					Rosewood

A Look Ahead at Comedy Tuesday

On Tuesday, January 5, FOX is rebooting their Tuesday night, with all four shows switching time
slots. New Girl will make its season premiere at 8pm, an hour earlier from when it aired for the rest of its run. Grandfathered has been shifted back to 8:30, followed by Brooklyn 9-9 at 9, which has moved into its fourth time slot in less than three seasons, and The Grinder at 9:30, airing an hour later than it did in the fall. To me, it would make the most sense to have the line-up be Brooklyn 9-9/The Grinder/New Girl/Grandfathered in order to make the most consistency in scheduling, but I'm sure they had their reasons to do otherwise.

New Girl saw a 21% decline last season, finishing with a 1.32 A18-49 rating. Despite premiering to a solid 1.7, it had gone fractional by early April and didn't really recover. But hey, at least it didn't fall as much as the 28% between Seasons 2 and 3, and the 29% between Seasons 1 and 2. Hard to believe that its first season ratings were in the low 3s. While relatively strong W18-34 ratings were probably the primary reason the show was renewed, it has a full 22 this season, but lacks star Zooey Deschanel for the first few episodes due to a pregnancy. With no lead-in, will New Girl even be able to premiere at a 1.0 rating or above?

Next up: Grandfathered. The show right now is at a totally healthy 1.06 A18-49 rating, and hasn't hit above a 1.0 since its 2nd episode. It never had a huge audience to start with, as it premiered to a 1.5 and fell to a 1.2, but airing it after New Girl probably won't help much either.

You know that FOX Tuesday is struggling when the anchor of the night is supposed to be Brooklyn 9-9, a show I still think led to the rapid ratings declines of Family Guy and Bob's Burgers. So far its season average is a 1.55--but so again, that pretty much what The Muppets is averaging too and we

know how that went. The last few weeks it posted 1.7s, though football impacted those nights. On non-football nights, it has been at either a 1.2 or a 1.3--and that's with airing out of The Simpsons. FOX is probably praying that ratings don't go fractional, as it is almost gaurenteed to be surrounded by fractional shows and a time slot downgrade (it aired on Tuesday in its first season and struggled, so they moved it to Sunday and saw a 13% gain in raw ratings. This year, it's already down 22%).

I sure hope that The Grinder doesn't possibly go any lower than it has gone this fall. It tied Grandfathered's 1.5 A18-49 premiere rating, but has been fractional since the third episode, including a pair of 0.7s to finish off the fall season. It can't possibly get any worse with a presumed time slot upgrade...right?

Now that you've voted, here are my predictions:

New Girl: 1.1
Grandfathered: 0.9
Brooklyn 9-9: 1.4
The Grinder: 0.8

What do you think? Vote in the polls and let me know in the comments below!