Certain to be Canceled:
N/A
Likely to be Canceled:
N/A
Leans Cancellation:
Bear Grylls is Running Wild (Fox) (0.12, 0.08-0.18)
Leans Renewal:
Farmer Wants a Wife (Fox) (0.14, 0.13-0.16)
Likely to be Renewed:
The 1% Club (Fox) (0.19, 0.13-0.23)
American Ninja Warrior (NBC) (0.18, 0.17-0.19)
Password (NBC) (0.22, 0.16-0.29)
The Quiz with Balls (Fox) (0.18, 0.13-0.25)
Certain to be Renewed:
America's Got Talent (NBC) (0.37, 0.30-0.50)
Fate Determined:
Brilliant Minds (Canceled)
The Floor (Fox) (Renewed)
MasterChef (Fox) (Renewed)
Surviving Earth (NBC) (Miniseries)
Yet to Premiere:
Beat Shazam (Fox)
Big Brother (CBS)
Celebrity Family Feud (ABC)
Celebrity Family Feud (ABC)
Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro (ABC)
Kitchen Nightmares (Fox)
Nation's Dumbest (Fox)
Press Your Luck (ABC)
The Wall (NBC)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (ABC)
Bear Grylls is Running Wild: Fox gave Running Wild a third chance, after previous runs on NBC and National Geographic. It's hard to argue that it was a success in any way. Over an eight-episode run, it averaged just 0.12 in the key demo, with fewer than a million viewers. It ended its season with a 0.08, the lowest rating any show on the Big Four has hit this season. Its season average is barely any higher than it was on National Geographic, a cable network, back in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
Fox has plenty of summer shows. In fact, they have so many shows that they're debuting a new Tuesday night lineup in just a few weeks. Even beyond the shows that are premiering in July, there are summer shows that remain MIA despite previous renewals. Fox isn't hurting for reality shows, and they can easily afford to cancel their worst performers. Last summer's The Snake was canceled with similar ratings (though not quite as bad as Running Wild), so shows aren't safe on Fox just because the network generally tolerates weaker ratings. The horrible ratings, combined with an even worse performance on streaming (despite little competition, it charted just a single day on Hulu over the course of the entire season), should be enough for Fox to decide to move on, especially when its ratings only got uglier as time went on. It leans cancellation.
American Ninja Warrior: It's been a rough season for American Ninja Warrior. Its 0.18 average marks a 35% drop from last season, but it's hard to argue that NBC couldn't have seen it coming. Their decision to move it to 9 PM behind comedy repeats was incredibly ill-advised. Few shows have excelled airing from 9 to 11, and we just saw The Voice struggle in this same time slot in the spring. If that show performed as poorly as it did with original comedy episodes as its lead-in, it wasn't likely that ANW would light the world on fire airing behind repeats in the same slot.
American Ninja Warrior has also had to air against major sporting events - the NBA Finals and the World Cup - for three of its four airings. That will hinder any show, but we didn't see it perform much better on the one week it aired without sports. While the scheduling has absolutely been a major factor in its ratings declines, these ratings do still beg the question of whether the show is on its last legs. It's performing the worst of NBC's four summer shows, and it's barely doing better than the burnoff episodes of Brilliant Minds. It's also not a strong streaming performer, only charting very briefly on Peacock a few weeks ago (with no chart appearances since). At a certain point, it doesn't make much financial sense to keep the show going. But I do think it has some life left in it.
American Ninja Warrior is a legacy show, and it very likely won't be abruptly canceled with no notice. NBC will want to try to save it, and I suspect a move back to 8 PM would undo at least some of the damage done this season. It'll never go back to its heyday - much like The Voice - but it can probably pull in decent enough ratings by summer standards. It's a show in decline, but not a show clearly at its end. Despite a poor season, it's a likely renewal.
What do you think of these predictions? What are your predictions? Let us know in the comments and vote in the poll of the week!
