ABC rolled out their new Tuesday lineup last week, bringing back Blackish and Big Sky from hiatus and premiering the second season of Mixed-ish. Keep reading to see how those premiere ratings will impact my predictions for the three shows!
Certain Cancellation:
N/A
Likely Cancellation:
N/A
Leans Cancellation:
Call Your Mother (0.5, 0.4-0.5)
For Life (0.4, 0.3-0.5)
Leans Renewal:
American Housewife (0.6, 0.6-0.6)
Blackish (0.5, 0.4-0.6)
Coming Soon:
Home Economics
Rebel
Women of the Movement
Mixed-ish: It's hard to imagine, but Mixed-ish actually had a strong return on Tuesday. Not strong in the sense that its ratings tower over the ratings of every other show, but strong in that it grew a strong amount from where it ended its first season, and had strong retention from Blackish. It even managed to be the #2 sitcom on ABC last week (which says more about the other shows than Mixed-ish, if we're being honest). Premieres can be deceiving, as many shows premiere well before slipping to cancel-worthy numbers. Mixed-ish can drop straight down to the terrible numbers it was pulling last year, and honestly, that's probably more likely than not. However, if it does get weak 0.5s consistently, that's not that bad. Ratings are lower this season than last, and so are ratings expectations. If ABC could renew it at that level then, it'll probably get renewed now. Being a part of the ish franchise helped it get a renewal last time, and I don't see any reason to expect the opposite this time. It's a LIKELY RENEWAL.
Big Sky: It's a show that has looked stronger as time went by. Its 0.6 post-1.4 for The Bachelorette launch looked pretty grim. It seemed reasonable to expect it to continue to decline as the season went by, and for it to be a bubble show that was in contention for a Stumptown-esque "pity renewal". However, it adjusted up later that day, then did the unusual and held at 0.7 in weeks two and three. It dropped two tenths the next week but adjusted up again to keep at a respectable 0.6, and held there for its midseason finale. When the midseason schedule was announced, it got stuck with a lead-in that looked like it would doom it, Mixed-ish. Then, the midseason premiere came and Mixed-ish did okay, and Big Sky grew narrowly from it in unrounded ratings. All this is to say that Big Sky is a resilient show that has outperformed expectations time and time again. It's not very dependent on its lead-in, and it's done quite well for itself. ABC is running ads calling it the "#1 new drama," so they seem quite proud of it. I was waiting for its premiere tatings to be sure, and I'm not confident in saying this: Big Sky is a LIKELY RENEWAL.
Blackish: Ratings for Blackish don't really matter, as I'm confident that ABC will let it go out whenever its creative team is ready, thanks to its syndication and streaming deals. However, it's worth noting that last week, Blackish was ABC's #1 comedy. Its ratings aren't that different from the ratings for The Goldbergs and The Conners, which aren't even fully owned by ABC like Blackish is. All of this reinforces my CERTAIN RENEWAL prediction.
What do you think of my predictions? What are your predictions? Let me know in the comments below and don't forget to vote in the poll of the week!
