It's a big week on the NBC Renew/Cancel, with a prediction update for one of the most high profile new entries of the season, as well as the start of the 2025 edition of NBC Renew/Cancel March Madness!
Certain Cancellation:
Brilliant Minds (0.23, 0.17-0.29)
Grosse Pointe Garden Society (0.13, 0.09-0.17)
The Irrational (0.17, 0.10-0.31)
Leans Cancellation:
N/A
Leans Renewal:
Found (0.22, 0.18-0.29)
Likely Renewal:
Law & Order (0.31, 0.25-0.36)
Certain Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.40, 0.34-0.48)
Chicago Med (0.41, 0.33-0.48)
Chicago PD (0.36, 0.30-0.48)
Law & Order: SVU (0.36, 0.29-0.49)
Saturday Night Live (0.84, 0.55-2.17)
Renewed:
Happy's Place
St. Denis Medical
Suits LA: It was another rough week for Suits LA, which is becoming something of a recurring pattern. I didn't want to hastily judge it for the 0.17 it got against the Oscars, considering the massive ratings of the ceremony, but week three was even worse. As The Americas rose half a tenth, Suits LA declined to a 0.16. While a decline of a single hundredth isn't a massive one, it is a clear warning sign. The interest in this show is clearly waning, and even though airing against the Oscars in week two isn't ideal, the show really only has itself to blame. The Americas is a strong lead-in, rating similarly to SVU and the Chicagos and only about a half-tenth behind the Voice, and yet Suits LA is NBC's third-weakest show in the demo. At the beginning of the season, I thought that NBC would be pretty willing to excuse the show's low ratings and do just about anything to make it work, because they were desperate to get some results out of Suits' surprising Netflix success. However, these poor ratings - and abysmal retention - suggest to me that there isn't really anything NBC can do to make it work. Original Suits star Gabriel Macht is set to appear for a three-episode guest arc next week, and fellow Suits star Rick Hoffman will also appear the show later in the season. It is possible that this gives the show a bit of juice and stops the hemorrhaging ratings, but those would only be temporary fixes to what is clearly a long-term problem. A Suits spinoff being a ratings failure isn't really that surprising. While the show was a hit on Netflix years after it ended, it was just an average ratings performer by cable standards during its run, and was never a breakout hit. Its final season averaged 0.21 in the key demo back in 2019. While that is higher than Suits LA is averaging now, ratings as a whole have declined significantly since 2019 (that year, the average show drew a 0.95 in the key 18-49 demo - this year, the average is just a 0.32). With a 33% decline since the premiere, loyal Suits fans likely did tune in, and weren't impressed with what they saw. Lightning rarely strikes twice, and this show has been rejected by the few who did give it a chance. Its streaming performance is also very concerning, given that streaming was what put Suits back into the pop culture lexicon to begin with. In each of the past three weeks, Suits LA has only ever trended on Peacock's top 10 chart a single day, and has never gone higher than #9 on the chart. Shows like The Hunting Party, Brilliant Minds and The Irrational all performed similarly at the start of their seasons, and went on to become clear streaming failures. NBC announced that Suits LA drew roughly a 0.75 in the key demo in multiplatform viewing in the week after its debut. That's obviously much better than the 0.24 it actually received, but it's not very impressive either, not for a show that they surely expected to be a strong streaming player. With minimal success on streaming and absolutely horrible linear ratings, it's very hard to imagine a path to renewal for Suits LA. NBC doesn't have the room for a safe-face renewal, and even with all the other new dramas bombing right along with it, they do have two freshman comedies renewal already, to keep the misfire of a 2024-25 freshman class alive. The only thing this show has going for it is its ties to Suits, and I'm not sure if that's anywhere near a big enough asset to excuse everything it has working against it. Suits LA is downgraded this week to a LIKELY CANCELLATION.
The Hunting Party: Another freshman drama working hard this week to secure its own demise is The Hunting Party. Out of NBC's four new dramas this season, this one has the highest average, but it can thank that one-off post-NFL airing for that. While that episode didn't even do all that well (just a 0.46, marking an early warning sign for the show), that was still enough to boost it past the others. I highly doubt that'll be enough to save it, though, as its most recent ratings have shown its true strength. It's slipped below the 0.20 mark two weeks in a row, and has yet to retain over 50% of The Voice. While Suits LA and Grosse Pointe and The Irrational are all bombing in more high-profile ways, the Hunting Party is also a huge misfire. In addition to the strong lead-in, it has minimal competition in its time slot - its strongest completion is NCIS: Origins, which isn't exactly a powerhouse, and has only aired a new episode against The Hunting Party once. It's also a non-factor on streaming, having failed to chart since the week of its time slot debut. It's not performing quite as poorly as Grosse Pointe or The Irrational, but it's a misfire all the same, and it remains a LIKELY CANCELLATION.
NBC Renew/Cancel March Madness begins!
The NBC Renew/Cancel March Madness tournament returns this week. This four-week voting event inspired by the NCAA bracket tournament allows readers the chance to help name their favorite series on all of the networks. With sixteen scripted shows on NBC this season, the tournament will kick off with sixteen shows, with half eliminated each week until the final two shows will face off for the win. Shows are seeded by their ratings average - for example, with Saturday Night Live being by far the #1 NBC series and Grosse Point being easily their lowest-rated, they will face off in round one. You can vote in all eight polls below!
| The TV Ratings Guide | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | The Voice | The Hunting Party | ||||
| Tues | St. Denis Medical | Night Court | Deal or No Deal Island | The Irrational | ||
| Wed | Chicago Med | Chicago Fire | Chicago PD | |||
| Thurs | Law & Order | Law & Order: SVU | Found | |||
| Fri | Happy's Place | Lopez vs Lopez | Dateline NBC | |||
| Sun | The Americas | Suits LA | Grosse Pointe Garden Society | |||
What do you think of my predictions? Let me know in the comments!
