NBC Renew/Cancel Week 7: St. Denis Medical Still Has a Pulse

At long last, there's another new entry to the NBC Renew/Cancel, as NBC debuts the first of three fall comedies - last season's successful mockumentary, St. Denis Medical. Keep reading for my initial thoughts on the series.

Certain Cancellation:
N/A

Likely Cancellation:

Brilliant Minds (0.15, 0.12-0.18)

Leans Cancellation:
On Brand with Jimmy Fallon (0.17, 0.14-0.22)

Leans Renewal:
Law & Order (0.22, 0.20-0.27)

Likely Renewal:
Law & Order: SVU (0.28, 0.21-0.33)
St. Denis Medical (0.34)
The Voice (0.34, 0.28-0.42)

Certain Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.35, 0.29-0.39)
Chicago Med (0.34, 0.28-0.39)
Chicago PD (0.30, 0.25-0.34)
Dateline NBC (0.17, 0.15-0.20)
Saturday Night Live (0.60, 0.58-0.70)

Coming Soon:
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
Happy's Place
The Hunting Party
Stumble
Surviving Earth

St. Denis Medical: NBC's new Monday lineup had the potential to be a catastrophe when it was announced back in May. St. Denis Medical was a second-season sitcom that hadn't yet proven that it had any sort of a loyal audience, having consistently dropped from the start of the season until its finale. At 8:30, NBC quite literally left the slot blank, kicking the can down the road to determine a time slot filler at a later date. At 9, The Voice was shortened to just an hour for the first time ever. And at 10, they brought Brilliant Minds back, for some reason. Well, it has been a disaster so far, but that's not the fault of St. Denis Medical (or the vacant 8:30 slot, which was filled by Peacock's The Paper, set to premiere next week). St. Denis returned this week to its strongest ratings since last November, with a really impressive 0.34 in the demo. That's higher than all but one Monday episodes of The Voice this season. It did that while facing one of the top comedies on TV, The Neighborhood, which has been a staple of Monday nights for the last seven years. There is absolutely zero guarantee that St. Denis Medical will hold up from here, though being entirely steady in the 8:30 half-hour is an excellent datapoint (it dropped a half tenth at 8:30 after last year's breakout 0.5 for its series premiere). We saw it drop last year, and it's entirely possible it will happen again. It's certainly not going to stay in this high 0.3 range through spring, and that really is fine. That it managed to avoid complete collapse is already an encouraging sign, and I think those 0.2s it got at the end of last season would be more than enough for renewal at this point in NBC's history. SVU and Law & Order have both gone lower than St. Denis's series low, and NBC has several dramas and a new reality show that have dipped into 0.1 territory. That it returned so well is an early sign to me that St. Denis will avoid a disastrous second season, and I think it would've taken a disastrous year two for them to cancel it. This was their most successful new series last year, and it's worth noting that it was NBC's #2 series in the key 18-49 demo last season in multiplatform+35 ratings, beating the Chicagos, The Voice, and everything else besides SVU. It's already showing promise again on streaming, performing well since its debut and reaching #1 on Peacock yesterday. NBC comedy has been in a bad place for a very long time, and St. Denis is looking like a solid performer for them. Its success comes as NBC's dramas continue to struggle, making it - for now - the #2 scripted primetime show on NBC this season. Every early sign for St. Denis is positive this season, from a strong premiere rating to a great showing on Peacock, and that means it enters as a LIKELY RENEWAL.

The Voice: As much as there is to praise about St. Denis Medical this week, there's at least as much to bash The Voice for. The long-running singing show stumbled to a new season low (though it avoided a series low) this week for its first regularly-scheduled 9 PM Monday episode, with just a 0.24. That's a full tenth below its lead-in, and it continues The Voice's free fall from hit show to below-average performer. I remain unconvinced that NBC will actually let The Voice go anytime soon, but it does seem that something has to change. For their part, NBC seems aware of this. In addition to tweaking with its scheduling, they're introducing a vastly changed format for next season, which will feature three popular champion coaches, including the returning Kelly Clarkson. It's a gamble, as the change could backfire, but they are trying a shakeup here. That may not be enough, though, as this show is quite expensive for an unscripted show, and its ratings aren't really justifying the cost. NBC can always cut it down to just one cycle a year, which would be especially beneficial for freeing up space on the network in an era where they've lost Tuesday nights and Sundays in the spring due to their NBA deal. They've cut The Voice down to a single a year once in the past, but were clearly spooked by the failure of its replacement, American Song Contest. Give how much The Voice is struggling, I think cutting it back again is worth the risk - besides, they've already cut it down to just an hour a week, just a third of what it would regularly air in past seasons. Something needs to be done to help stop the bleeding, and giving the viewers a bit of time to actually miss The Voice before it returns could help. It's done wonders for ABC with Dancing with the Stars, and it's certainly helped keep American Idol feeling like an event program.The Voice remains a LIKELY RENEWAL, but that doesn't mean things don't have to change here. It's too expensive to be perfuming this poorly.

Interactive Schedule:

The TV Ratings Guide	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Mon	St. Denis Medical	The Paper	The Voice	Brilliant Minds
Tues	NBA on NBC
Wed	Chicago Med		Chicago Fire	Chicago PD
Thurs	Law & Order		Law & Order: SVU	Law & Order: Organized Crime
Fri	Happy's Place	Stumble	Dateline NBC
Sat	College Football on NBC
Sun	Sunday Night Football