ABC Reality Renew/Cancel Week 2: Bachelor in Paradise No Longer in Paradise

After an extended break, the ABC Reality Renew/Cancel is back to wrap up the fall season, as I look at some of the season's biggest disappointments and hits and adjust predictions for three of them.

Certain Cancellation:
N/A

Likely Cancellation:
N/A

Leans Cancellation:
N/A

Leans Renewal:
Press Your Luck

Likely Renewal:

The $100,000 Pyramid

Bachelor in Paradise

Celebrity Wheel of Fortune

Certain Renewal:

20/20

America's Funniest Home Videos

Celebrity Jeopardy!

Dancing with the Stars

The Golden Bachelor

Shark Tank

Already Canceled/Ending:

N/A

Already Renewed:

The Great Christmas Light Fight

Coming Soon:

American Idol

The Bachelor

Judge Steve Harvey

What Would You Do?

Press Your Luck: This game show, a typical summer staple, shifted to the fall this year due to the strike. Due to its reliable summer performances, this seemed like a decent scheduling move. Its placement at 10 PM, despite being a casually-viewed game show that thrived with a local programming lead-in, was questionable, but it still looked like it should be a decent enough match with Dancing with the Stars, a fellow family-friendly unscripted show. That wasn't how things worked out. Despite DWTS rating as - by far - Tuesday's #1 show, Press Your Luck was usually second in its slot, beaten handily by NBC's Found. In fact, Dancing with the Stars was also ABC's #1 show overall this season, and is TV's #2 show, behind Survivor. Press Your Luck is ABC's lowest-rated show this season so far, rating behind fellow 10 PM game show The $100,000 Pyramid. Its retention from DWTS, just 40%, is among the worst retention on all of broadcast TV this season. While ABC game shows have a tendency to stick around for quite a while, we've seen some summer shows that were moved in-season get canceled after lengthy runs - Match Game and, presumably, To Tell The Truth both got the axe in recent years. I'll give Press Your luck the benefit of the doubt, and say that it's probably cheap enough to justify bringing it back in the summer, but its fall performance is absolutely worthy of cancellation. It LEANS RENEWAL.

Bachelor in Paradise: Speaking of summer staples that disappointed in moves to the fall, Bachelor in Paradise had quite the rough season. Much like Press Your Luck, it had one of TV's top shows (fellow Bachelor Nation show The Golden Bachelor) as its lead-in, and it did absolutely nothing with it, sliding 39% from last season (which itself was an underwhelming season for the show, ratings-wise) to a 0.34 average - just 57% retention from The Golden Bachelor. Its three-hour marathon of a finale hit a new low in the 18-49 demo, and further signifies the declining nature of this franchise (The Golden Bachelor, a massive success for ABC, being an obvious outlier.) With all things Golden looking to be the future of this franchise, it wouldn't be a terrible shock if ABC decided to put to rest one of the current iterations, and Paradise is the lowest-rated and most expendable. Dancing with the Stars, The Golden Bachelor and the Wednesday night celebrity game shows were all strong for ABC this fall, and with scripted back next fall, there's not room for all of them. Paradise can move back to where it aired in its first seven seasons, but a cancellation wouldn't b e entirely unjustified. Regardless, its performance this season does not justify a prediction of complete certainty in its renewal. It's down to a LIKELY RENEWAL.

Celebrity Jeopardy!: One show looking better in this update is Celebrity Jeopardy. It started its season solidly, but still well below its weekday performance from season one. However, it held up well as the season went along, averaging 0.42 for its Wednesday run. It'll finish out its season with four episodes on Tuesdays, and I don't expect ratings to see much of a change. It's been very consistent, and it's held its own against the absolute beast that is Survivor. Comedies will most likely take that Wednesday slot next fall, but Celebrity Jeopardy has done well enough to certainly lock in a slot somewhere on ABC's schedule next season. It's a CERTAIN RENEWAL.

What do you think of these predictions? What are your predictions? Let me know in the comments and vote in the poll of the week!