Certain Cancellation:
N/A
Likely Cancellation:
The Golden Bachelor (0.22, 0.16-0.28)
Leans Cancellation:
N/A
Leans Renewal:
Shifting Gears (0.35)
Likely Renewal:
Abbott Elementary (0.29)
Celebrity Wheel of Fortune (0.31)
Shark Tank (0.16, 0.13-0.20)
Certain Renewal:
20/20 (0.20)
America's Funniest Home Videos (0.26)
Dancing with the Stars (1.10, 1.02-1.22)
High Potential (0.33, 0.32-0.34)
Coming Soon:
9-1-1
9-1-1: Nashville
American Idol
The Bachelorette
Celebrity Jeopardy!
The Great Christmas Light Fight
Grey's Anatomy
RJ Decker
The Rookie
Scrubs
Will Trent
Shifting Gears: Of all of the scripted shows on ABC's fall lineup, this one's probably the hardest for me to predict. Ratings-wise, it looks pretty safe. Its 0.35 premiere rating is very respectable, and its highest rating since the sixth episode of its first season. Not every show is able to return up from the ratings it was drawing at the end of its previous season, especially when it went off the air before the effects of spring began to set in. Returning this well after a nine month hiatus is commendable, and shows this this show may be a bit stronger than I gave it credit for. That being said, I remain concerned about ABC's seeming lack of enthusiasm for the show. Even before it premiered, ABC essentially confirmed that the show is already capped at only thirteen episodes for the season. That's up from the originally-ordered ten episodes, but still unusual for a standard sitcom with solid ratings that had a fall premiere. Midseason debuts often have shorter initial orders for their second seasons, but there is usually an option to order more episodes down the line. That doesn't seem to be the case here. ABC's Wednesday schedule is a mess, and they've been trying to juggle airing three sitcoms for the last several seasons. This season is no different, and they've seemingly decided that the best way to schedule their comedy trio is to have Shifting Gears and the new Scrubs revival share a time slot. That seems to be the deciding factor in a shortened order for Shifting Gears, and that brings questions of its own. Is this going to be the plan moving forward, or is a potential comedy expansion in the cards? That would be a big assist for Shifting Gears' renewal chances, but it's by no means a guarantee. Maybe Tim Allen only wanted to do shorter seasons, and this short order isn't an indictment of ABC's thoughts on Shifting Gears. Or did ABC order Scrubs because they're not thrilled with how Shifting Gears has performed and want a replacement? That would obviously put the show in clear danger, if ABC's already rushing a replacement onto the air before the second season's even debuted. A this point, we don't really know what prompted them to decide on only giving Shifting Gears a shortened second run, so while it's probably not the greatest sign for it, I'm not going to operate under the assumption that this means it's doomed. What we do know is that towards the end of last season, it was said that its streaming performance was declining by upwards of 50% from the start of the season to the end. That makes sense, seeing as it declined by that much in linear ratings as well, but it started out so high that it was always bound to fall. I'm not going to begin panicking about the show until we get clear data showing that it's underperforming during this current season. The questions surrounding its short order leads me to be more cautious with its initial prediction, given how early it still is in the season, so it LEANS RENEWAL to start out. If it had a full season order, or the option to get one, I would have probably put it down as a likely renewal to start the season. I hope to get more clarity here by the end of the season.
Abbott Elementary: ABC's acclaimed comedy returned last week at 8:30, leading out of Shifting Gears. These shows seem wildly incompatible, with Shifting Gears being a multi-cam sitcom that skews on the older side, while Abbott Elementary is a single-cam comedy that attracts a younger audience. In last season's L+30 muiltiplatform ratings, Abbott averaged nearly nine tenths higher than Gears in the key 18-49 demo, while drawing two million fewer viewers. In other words, these shows are pretty much only paired up because they're the only sitcoms ABC has to air. It's a marriage of convenience. Their ratings didn't always shift in the same way from week to week last season, and it was clear that they had somewhat distinct audiences. So I'm not terribly shocked that one of them returned looking better than it did last season and one of them returned looking worse. That's pretty much par for the course with these shows. That doesn't mean that Abbott returning to a near-series-low is anything to get excited about, but I understand why it couldn't capitalize much on its lead-in rising. A 0.29 in the key demo is still fine enough to not be too worried about this show, but this show had settled into a pattern of building on Shifting Gears and has now returned six tenths lower than it, and you can really only point the blame at Abbott itself. I don't think there's much of a chance that Abbott ends this season, but a season of underwhelming ratings may well shorten its lifespan. Creator and star Quinta Brunson has already stated that the show's cast is interested in pursuing other projects, and that the show limits their ability to do so. In an ensemble cast like Abbott, one or two cast members could leave and the show can still continue, so I don't think that's a sign that the show's on its way out, especially when Brunson didn't give any indication that the end was particularly close in that interview. Still, it seems like this may be the sort of comedy hit that lasts six or seven seasons rather than ten or eleven, like previous ABC staples The Goldbergs and Modern Family. And since it's in season five now, I think it's worth discussing whether the end is near. I don't think it's going to end this season. I'd bet heavily against that. But with linear ratings that aren't outstanding and mixed signals about its longevity from its creator, I'm going to exercise just a bit of caution with my prediction at the start of the season. Abbott Elementary begins as a LIKELY RENEWAL.
The Golden Bachelor: If you read my column last week, I spoke at length about The Golden Bachelor, and essentially decided to give it the benefit of the doubt because the Bachelor franchise is an ABC staple and draws fairly stable ratings for the network. Well, throw all of that out. Last week, The Golden Bachelor took one of the most precipitous tumbles we've seen for a broadcast show in recent memory, going from a decent 0.28 rating to a horrid 0.16 rating, a 42% drop. That's embarrassing, to say the least. I surely can't defend it, and I doubt ABC can, either. Only Shark Tank rated worse on ABC last week, and that show had the dubious honor of airing after this dumpster fire in the 10 PM hour. The Golden Bachelor was handily beat by 99 to Beat, and was a full two tenths behind Chicago Fire in the 9 PM hour. ABC is no longer competitive on Wednesdays, mostly thanks to this utter disaster. ABC can't be happy, and even though they do love Bachelor Nation, we've seen them cancel flop Bachelor shows in the past. This is worse than a flop, this is a catastrophe. This is worthy of being yanked off the schedule. At the very least, it should swap time slots with Shark Tank, because there's no way that show would do any worse than a 0.16 in a 9 PM slot. The were already signs that viewers had Bachelor fatigue before this, but it's apparent now. For the sake of the franchise, they need to let these Golden spinoffs go. The ratings make a better argument for that than I ever could. The Golden Bachelor has been downgraded to a LIKELY CANCELLATION.
| The TV Ratings Guide | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Monday Night Football | |||||
| Tues | Dancing with the Stars | High Potential | ||||
| Wed | Shifting Gears | Abbott Elementary | The Golden Bachelor | Shark Tank | ||
| Thurs | 9-1-1 | 9-1-1: Nashville | Grey's Anatomy | |||
| Fri | Celebrity Wheel of Fortune | 20/20 | ||||
| Sat | Saturday Night Football | |||||
| Sun | The Wonderful World of Disney | |||||
Renewed
Certain Renew
Likely Renew
Leans Renew
Leans Cancel
Likely Cancel
Certain Cancel
Canceled
What do you think of my predictions? What are your predictions? Let me know in the comments and vote in the poll of the week!
