ABC Renew/Cancel Week 23: We Need to Talk About RJ Decker + ABC Renew/Cancel March Madness Championship Voting!

RJ Decker finds itself in the firing line again this week on the aBC Renew/Cancel, as I take a look at whether ABC's newest scripted series is doing enough for a second season. Plus, an assessment of ABC's latest true crime filler series, which launched last Sunday to minimal fanfare.

Certain Cancellation:
N/A

Likely Cancellation:
Betrayal: Secrets & Lies (0.09)
The Golden Bachelor (0.19, 0.16-0.28)

Leans Cancellation:
RJ Decker (0.17, 0.13-0.23)

Leans Renewal:
The Greatest Average American (0.23, 0.18-0.28)

Likely Renewal:

Celebrity Jeopardy! (0.31, 0.31-0.32)

Celebrity Wheel of Fortune (0.23, 0.15-0.31)

The Great Christmas Light Fight (0.18, 0.14-0.22)

The Rookie (0.24, 0.19-0.29)

Scrubs (0.49, 0.39-0.66)

Shark Tank (0.17, 0.11-0.24)

Shifting Gears (0.37, 0.31-0.45)

Will Trent (0.31, 0.25-0.40)

Certain Renewal:

20/20 (0.20, 0.12-0.32)

American Idol (0.45, 0.36-0.62)

America's Funniest Home Videos (0.32, 0.24-0.44)

Dancing with the Stars (1.36, 1.02-2.06)

Already Renewed:

9-1-1

9-1-1: Nashville

Abbott Elementary

Grey's Anatomy

High Potential

Already Canceled/Ending:

Dirty Talk: When Daytime Talk Shows Ruled TV (Miniseries)

RJ Decker: I've tried to give RJ Decker the benefit of the doubt during its run, because I've felt that ABC wanted to bring this show back, and would do so if they could justify that renewal. Its premiere rating was decent enough, and its week two performance was even better, but I did have pause early on due to its Hulu performance, which seemed to be weaker than most of ABC's other dramas from the very start. Shows on Hulu tend to be front loaded, performing their best at the very start - hence why 9-1-1: Nashville has gone from topping the chart multiple times to now charting for roughly half the week. The trend is even worse on Disney+, where we saw RJ Decker shine at the start, but are now seeing it falter.

That alone was not enough to get too negative about RJ Decker. I even avoided downgrading it as it sunk to a 0.13, as that rating happened against a huge World Baseball Classic championship game, and I didn't want to make any hasty decisions. However, things have not gotten much better in recent weeks. It ticked up to a 0.15 the week after that game and stayed there the next week. RJ Decker is now ABC's lowest-rated scripted show, with a 0.17 average. Grey's Anatomy is the only other series rating below the 0.20 mark, and RJ Decker is surely no Grey's Anatomy. Will Trent and High Potential have both had fairly modest showings in recent weeks (by their own standards - both are still doing fine overall), but RJ Decker is still barely retaining more than 50% of High Potential, which is not good. It's a clear downgrade from The Rookie, a show nearly a decade old.

It's clear that ABC's Tuesday night lineup has weakened since the launch of RJ Decker. ABC isn't even beating CBS in the 10 PM hour anymore, as NCIS: Sydney has not-so-coincidentally strengthened since RJ Decker came along, and has beaten it the last three weeks. While linear ratings matter less than they once did, RJ Decker is the clear weakest link in L+SD ratings among ABC's programs. It's not performing up to its expectations in the post-High Potential slot.

It doesn't seem to be making up those losses on Hulu, either. The show hasn't cracked the top five on Hulu in weeks, when every other ABC drama does so easily. Only Shifting Gears and Scrubs perform worse among ABC's scripted shows on Hulu, and both of those shows rate much higher in first-run ratings on ABC. ABC has, unsurprisingly, kept pretty quiet about RJ Decker's multiplatform ratings since its launch. Its premiere garnered 8.1 million viewers in MP+7 ratings, which was below The Rookie and its fellow Tuesday dramas, but a bit above 9-1-1 (none of ABC's other series made the top twenty for that week, and were not reported). A pretty respectable launch, but there are many indications that it hasn't held up too well, and we know that new series tend to drop off after people who sampled them naturally decide not to become weekly viewers. I have my doubts that its multiplatform performance is strong enough to justify these terrible linear ratings when we can see RJ Decker struggling to make much of an impact on Hulu and even fading on Disney+, where it was performing fairly well.

With High Potential ending on Tuesday, RJ Decker will move to 9 PM next week. That will be a major test for the new drama, which will be moving to a more palatable hour, but not exactly getting a stronger lead-in. If we see the move positively impacting the show, I could reconsider my cancellation. prediction. I was actually hoping to see how it did in that slot before I downgraded it, but I just didn't feel I could justify a renewal prediction any longer, given its overall underperformance. It moves to leans cancellation this week, but I am willing to have an open mind about it if shows some life in its move next week.

Betrayal: Secrets & Lies: What was once supposed to be a cheap post-Bachelorette filler show has now bene left out on its own, airing behind repeats in an unenviable Sunday at 10 time slot. Few new shows have ever been able to self-start at 10 PM on a Sunday, let alone when airing behind two hours of repeats. It's no surprise that this filler true crime series got off to a terrible start last Sunday, drawing just a 0.09 in the key demo. It is notable that this came behind a 0.16 from The Greatest Average American, meaning it retained just 56% of a repeat of a series that isn't even performing that well in its first run. ABC continuing to run Betrayal: Secrets & Lies at 10 PM rather than shuffling it to an earlier hour after The Bachelorette was yanked is a sign that it's a true afterthought, and with the series drawing a lower rating than any other ABC's hit this season, they have absolutely zero reason to bring it back again. It starts as a likely cancellation, avoiding a "certain" label simply because we have seen ABC randomly bring back similarly low-rated filler true crime series in recent years, simply due to them needing something very cheap to fill space. It's far more likely they create yet another new filler show than bring this back, but there is still a distant chance, given how cheap and easy to produce it surely is.

ABC Renew/Cancel March Madness:

After three weeks of voting, our championship match has been set. The top seed fell this week, as Abbott Elementary beat Scrubs in a Wednesday comedy smack-down, with a roughly 13% margin of victory. While not exactly a nailbiter, it was a much closer contest for Abbott than it faced in the first round, even as its vote count ticked up slightly. It will now head to the championship match, in th hopes of defending its title.

After looking like the underdog all week, The Rookie slowly but surely managed to pull off a win in the closing hours of voting. It and High Potential were tied as recently as this afternoon, but it managed a tight two-vote margin of victory over High Potential, beating it by about 1% overall. It's a very impressive showing for The Rookie, which had to compete in the First Four play-in round to even get. a sport in the Elite Eight round, which every other semifinalist had a guaranteed spot in. The Rookie drew the most votes any show has in the tournament so far, tying 9-1-1: Nashville's opening-round vote total of 74 votes. It now heads back to the championship game, two years after it lost the first annual competition to Station 19, and it faces a former champion.

It's a comedy vs drama battle, featuring two valuable veteran series that both seemingly have a secure place on ABC's lineup next season. That's different from the last two years, when Station 19 and The Conners fans rallied to push their shows to the championship game after having been canceled well in advance. It's now up to you, our readers, to decide which ABC series deserves the title of ABC Renew/Cancel March Madness champion for 2026.

The TV Ratings Guide	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Mon	American Idol			The Rookie
Tues	Will Trent		High Potential	RJ Decker
Wed	Scrubs	Abbott Elementary	The Greatest Average American	Shark Tank
Thurs	9-1-1		9-1-1: Nashville	Grey's Anatomy
Fri	Celebrity Jeopardy!		20/20
Sat	NBA Saturday Primetime
Sun	America's Funniest Home Videos		Celebrity Jeopardy! (R)	Betrayal: Secrets & Lies