This week on the Summer Renew/Cancel, we take a look at one of the few new series premiering this summer, plus, one of last seasons's summer success stories returns.
Certain to be Canceled:
The Great North (Fox) (0.14, 0.12-0.16)
Raid the Cage (CBS) (0.17, 0.16-0.17)
Likely to be Canceled:
Yes, Chef! (NBC) (0.15, 0.12-0.19)
Leans Cancellation:
N/A
Leans Renewal:
Destination X (NBC) (0.28, 0.25-0.30)
Gordon Ramsay's Secret Service (Fox) (0.21, 0.19-0.23)
Likely to be Renewed:
MasterChef (Fox) (0.22, 0.17-0.25)
The Quiz with Balls (Fox) (0.19)
Certain to be Renewed:
American Ninja Warrior (NBC) (0.30)
America's Got Talent (NBC) (0.45, 0.41-0.48)
Bob's Burgers (Fox) (Renewed)
Coming Soon:
Destination X: NBC has one of the summer's top performers in America's Got Talent. In fact, AGT is so strong that it often surpasses the ratings of most of the shows from the regular season. It is currently NBC's highest-rated show this season in L+SD ratings, slightly edging out the fall season of The Voice. Despite that, NBC has had trouble finding anything to stick in that 10 PM slot behind it. In the last decade, just two shows (World of Dance and, most recently, Password) have done well enough to hold the slot for multiple seasons. World of Dance lasted three seasons behind AGT before it was canceled despite decent ratings, while Password's fate is still TBA, having spent a season and a half behind AGT. Most other shows behind AGT were flops, only ever looking passable at best thanks to that strong lead-in and the generally lower expectations for summer 10 PM series. Two weeks into its run, Destination X is looking more like the former than the latter. Its retention of AGT is an uninspiring 62%, but its 0.28 average through its first two episodes is better than all of NBC's new dramas from the regular season, putting it behind only The Americas and St. Denis Medical. In fact, NBC had such a rough season that that average is enough to rank it as their #11 series this season overall. It can still collapse as the season goes on, as we have seen happen to several other post-AGT series in the past, but this is a good start. Especially encouraging is that the show rose half a tenth from the premiere to episode two, posting a slightly higher week-to-week % gain than AGT. It's hard to imagine NBC canceling a reality series that's performed better than many of their scripted offerings, including several series that they renewed. There's promise here, and if it can keep showing promise throughout this season, it'll be an easy renewal, even if NBC has scaled back on summer programming in recent years. For now, it LEANS RENEWAL until there's a bit more data, but an upgrade could surely be ahead if it keeps performing this well.
The Quiz with Balls: Last season, The Quiz with Balls was a surprise success story for Fox, managing to grow a bit from Beat Shazam with a 0.25 average (vs. Beat Shazam's 0.22). That was a very respectable average for Fox at any point in the season, let alone summer, and vastly improved on the scripted shows that aired before it on Tuesday nights on Fox. It was an obvious renewal, but its situation has changed a bit as it returned. It's been moved to Monday nights, and despite its strong ratings, the show isn't leading off that lineup. With Beat Shazam off the schedule, it's now placed behind LEGO Masters, another OK ratings performer that does well enough to get by on Fox, but doesn't really provide any lead-in support. The Quiz with Balls returned to a new series low, a 0.19. That's roughly a half-tenth lower than its series premiere from 2024, but it's hard to expect that much more from it. Fox's ratings are, well, not good. Similar to Destination X, The Quiz with Balls is just an OK performer overall, but it airs on a struggling that hasn't had much recent success, so its ratings look better in comparison. Nine of the network's scripted shows had lower than a 0.19 average this season - over half the network. It's performing a bit worse than most of Fox's reality shows (which are the highlight of the network at this point), but 0.19 isn't far off from what Extracted averaged, and that show was renewed. Gordon Ramsay's summer series aren't doing much better this season (though they rated comfortably ahead of Balls last week). The Thursday cartoons aren't doing any better, either, so Quiz with Balls is still performing well enough for a Fox summer show. It's hard to get too excited about a 0.19, but no matter how you look at it, it's a decent showing for Fox at this point, and I don't know if they could do better in that post-LEGO Masters slot. This show has the potential to be a decent summer performer for Fox for a while yet. It's a LIKELY 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!
