NBC Renew/Cancel Week 12: The Voice’s Voice is Sounding Faint

This week on the NBC Renew/Cancel, it's a coincidentally Reba McEntire-centric edition, I take another look at The Voice and Happy's Place. Keep reading to see if either show is on the move this week.

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)
Stumble (0.17, 0.15-0.18)

Likely Renewal:
Happy's Place (0.24, 0.22-0.26)
St. Denis Medical (0.31, 0.25-0.34)
The Voice (0.24, 0.24-0.42)

Certain Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.34, 0.29-0.39)
Chicago Med (0.35, 0.28-0.39)
Chicago PD (0.29, 0.25-0.34)
Dateline NBC (0.18, 0.15-0.20)
Law & Order: SVU (0.28, 0.21-0.33)
Saturday Night Live (0.60, 0.58-0.70)

Coming Soon:
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
The Hunting Party
Surviving Earth
The Wall

The Voice: This has been another poor season for The Voice. After another decent (if unexceptional) start, the long-running singing competition is averaging just 0.32 in the key demo. That's down a bit from its disastrous spring season, and down a full tenth from last fall. Since shifting down to a single hour a week, the show is averaging just 0.25 in the demo, with St. Denis Medical outshining it at the start of the night. Peacock original The Paper fills the half-hour between the two shows, not exactly ideal scheduling for The Voice, which has long been used to having the strong local lead-in at 8 PM. Still, it performed better than 0.25 when it was airing at 9 PM on Tuesdays earlier this year, but those episodes were for the "blind audition" episodes, typically the highest-rated portion in any given season of the Voice. The Voice is not the sort of show that should be getting beaten in the ratings by a Friday night Reba McEntire sitcom, but that's what happened last week, when The Voice came in at 0.25, while Happy's Place drew a 0.26 just days later. Comedy has been NBC's weakest point in recent history, and several comedies look stronger than The Voice lately, which is deeply embarrassing for The Voice. NBC is obviously struggling across the board, with their highest-rated primetime show only averaging about three hundredths above The Voice for the season overall. That doesn't mean The Voice's troubles are not a concerning point. This is a show that is meant to be NBC's high-rated launchpad. While it didn't exactly make many hit shows over the course of its long run (The Blacklist being a notable exception, with most other successes flaming out quickly after strong starts), the Monday night post-Voice slot was always where NBC would slot one of its most promising fall dramas. The Tuesday night post-Voice slot also saw attempts at launching new dramas, This Is Us being among them. It's not capable o doing that anymore. While 10 PM is a tougher time slot now than it's ever been before, it is hard to expect a show to perform very well when its lead-in is just a 0.25. This season, they didn't even bother ordering a new drama to put behind The Voice, instead slotting Brilliant Minds -which they knew was a bust - behind the show and crossing their fingers for the best. It's a truly damning indication of just how far The Voice has fallen that this is what they've decided to use as its lead-out. NBC is in a bind here, as The Voice and most of their Dick Wolf shows are still top-rated shows for them, but they take up space on the lineup and don't give them anywhere to launch new shows. So, as those shows decline, so does NBC as a whole. Few shows are able to break through, and recently, none of them are dramas. I don't know what the answer is here, and I really doubt NBC will let go of The Voice without a fight. This spring will see a greatly altered format for The Voice, which NBC will surely hope breathes new life into it. I have my doubts about that, but I'm willing to give it a chance. My stance on The Voice's renewal prospects will likely not change, though. This is very unlikely to be the season NBC cancels it entirely. It could, however, be the season son disastrous that NBC finally decides to make it a once-yearly sort of event. That helped Dancing with the Stars climb to new heights, and while I doubt it works such wonders on The Voice, it is worth another try, hopefully with a replacement more promising than American Song Contest. This is an expensive show, as we've seen from this season's clear budget cuts (which have involved smaller teams and just one week of live shows), so something has to be done here to fix its issues. I expect NBC to continue tinkering with its scheduling and format in order to try and salvage it, and only after all else fails will it find itself truly in danger. Whether it really can be reformed into a hit show again remains to be seen, though ABC was able to make American Idol back into a hit after it was canceled by Fox (a cancellation which, coincidentally, came at a very similar point in that show's run to where The Voice currently is - fourteen years in). It remains a LIKELY RENEWAL, but there's work to be done.

Happy's Place: This sitcom is a pretty decent entry into the world of NBC comedy. With a 0.24 average, it is sitting at around 80% of the league average for the 2025-26 season, so it's not exactly a hit. But for a Friday night show, it's pretty solid. Sheriff Country and Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, the top Friday shows on CBS and ABC, are both sitting at practically the same averages (or slightly lower), so NBC can feel happy that they have a show that can keep them competitive on Friday. It's especially impressive that said show is a sitcom, which they've struggled with. I expect Happy's Place to remain on the air for at least a few more years. Syndication is a dimming prospect recently, but this is the sort of show that you would expect to see a network try to sell into syndication, and being a casual watch starring a few familiar faces for sitcom viewers, I could see it working. Still, I have found its ratings trend this season to be a tad underwhelming. After a nice 0.25 start, it was down the next two weeks, and with a big 0.46 lead-in, it rose to only a 0.26 - barely a season high. Last year, it jumped significantly more after Rudolph, and retained it a bit better. That's why I'm not upgrading it, even though I am confident it'll be back. With thirteen episodes to air next year, and a break for the Olympics, it's guaranteed to run later into the year than it did last season. That means it's going to face the harsh realities of spring, when 8 PM shows are often hit with noticeable ratings declines. I just want to make sure this show doesn't stat looking a bit questionable in the ratings department, especially given that isn't not a huge streaming hit. It's still a LIKELY RENEWAL, but that's probably where it's going to stay for a while.

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