Of all the broadcast networks, it is pretty clear that CBS has the highest standards for their comedy ratings. They are not the type of network that will renew a show, or let it finish its first season even, to see if it can grow (with the rare exception of Mom). Simply put, they do not have any room on their comedy schedule to do such a thing (now if they just cut down on a couple low-rated drama hours...). Of their seven most recently cancelled series, only two made it past 15 episodes: The Crazy Ones and The Millers. Even then, The Crazy Ones was cancelled after a full season, and The Millers was pulled from the schedule five episodes into its second season. Let's now take a look back at all those short-lived shows. Before you move on, try to see if you can actually name all of them.
| Show |
Year Aired |
Episodes Aired |
Summer Burn-Off? |
Average A18-49 Rating Before Burnoff |
Average A18-49 Burnoff Rating |
High |
Low |
| How To Be A Gentleman |
2011-2012
|
9
|
Yes (6 episodes) |
2.0
|
0.3
|
2.7
|
0.3
|
| Rob |
2012
|
8
|
No |
3.3
|
N/A
|
4.1
|
2.6
|
| We Are Men |
2013
|
2
|
No (pulled from the schedule) |
1.9
|
N/A
|
2.0
|
1.8
|
| Bad Teacher |
2014
|
13
|
Yes (8 episodes) |
1.5
|
0.3
|
2.1
|
0.2
|
| Friends With Better Lives |
2014
|
8
|
No (pulled from the schedule) |
1.8
|
N/A
|
2.6
|
1.4
|
| The Crazy Ones |
2013-2014 |
22
|
No |
2.1
|
N/A
|
3.9
|
1.3
|
| The Millers |
2013-2014 |
34
|
Yes (6 episodes) |
2.6 (S1) and 1.7 (S2)
|
TBD
|
3.3
|
1.5
|
| The McCarthys |
2014-2015 |
15
|
Yes (4 episodes) |
1.5
|
TBD
|
1.7
|
1.1
|
How To Be A Gentleman
How To Be A Gentleman aired in the 2011-2012 TV season. Of course, saying this is very generous, because it was pulled from the schedule in October 2011 before being burned off in 2012. It aired just 9 episodes.
Don’t let the 2.0 Adults18-49 average for the first three episodes fool you—it should be noted that its lead-in was The Big Bang Theory. Its premiere episode had only a 2.7 rating out of The Big Bang Theory’s 4.9, and its second episode got a 2.5 out of a 4.5. Not too great retention. But what happened in the third episode, which aired after a 0.9 Two and a Half Men lead-in on a Saturday, did something that few shows have done over time: lost 72% of its week-ago audience. Yes, that’s right, How To Be A Gentleman had a 0.7 in its third episode, and was rightfully pulled from the schedule after that historically disastrous rating.
How To Be A Gentleman may go down as being the most lead-in dependent show of the common era. And yes, that includes the other disasters listed in this table. Let’s just say that the Saturday experiment didn’t exactly work for them, and there hasn’t been a first-run scripted show in a handful of years that landed on Saturday except for burnoffs.
Rob
Remember Rob? It was CBS’s fall 2012 attempt of finding a perfect companion for The Big Bang Theory. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. Some criticized the show for having a Latino theme, with no person of the ethnicity on the writing staff. On the bright side, it wasn’t one of the many shows whose fate was a summer burnoff. It was also the highest rated of the bunch, with an average of a 3.3 Adults18-49 rating over its 8-episode run.
But this isn’t all about raw numbers. After all, networks don’t renew shows based off of past results, but rather what they think the show will rate in the following season. The show started with a 4.1 Adults18-49 rating, and went down to a 2.6 by its finale. In fact, every episode was either even or down from the previous episode in raw ratings, losing more and more of its Big Bang Theory lead-in. Take a 2.6 rating for an unfavorably reviewed show and move it away from The Big Bang Theory, and there is very little chance of it staying above a 2.0 rating. CBS saw this coming, and cancelled it ahead of a potential sophomore slump.
We Are Men
We Are Men aired in the fall of 2013 after the final season of How I Met Your Mother. For two episodes, that is. Its retention out of its lead-in was poor, to say the least, and its critical reviews were anything but favorable. It premiered to a very modest 2.0 Adults18-49 rating, and I must say that its 1.8 for its second episode really isn’t all that bad considering its original sampling. However, the sheer fact that its original sampling was so relatively low got it pulled from the schedule. There really isn’t much else to say on the matter of this two-episode wonder, other than that it will go down in history along with Lucky 7 as one of two shows airing in the 2013-2014 season to be pulled from the schedule and never burned off.
Bad Teacher
Bad Teacher? More like Bad Ratings? Sorry for the bad joke. After premiering to a modest 2.1 rating after Two and a Half Men’s 2.5, Bad Teacher quickly crumbled, hitting a 1.4 on its second episode and a 1.1 by its fifth episode, after which CBS pulled it from the schedule. And it just got worse. One of its Saturday episodes received a 0.2 rating, which means it shed over 90% of its premiere audience. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t believe any show on non-CW broadcast television has ever gone lower than that. If you were one of the 0.2% of adults between the ages of 18 and 49 who watched that one live on a Saturday night: I don’t think there has ever been someone more loyal to a show than you.
On a side note, the first five episodes of this show about a trophy wife-turned-teacher followed an eerily similar ratings path as ABC’s Trophy Wife, which actually shared nothing in common with this show.
Friends with Better Lives
Friends with Better Lives joins We Are Men as one of the shows on this list which was pulled from the schedule and never burned off later. The thing is, the ratings for this show weren’t especially that bad. Its finale managed a 1.4 rating amidst 1.0 rerun ratings for both its lead-in and lead-out, and did not receive a first-run lead-in for any of its final three episodes. It also held decently in the ratings despite this. After premiering behind the series finale of How I Met Your Mother, the show was pretty much left on its own, since 2 Broke Girls had a massive decline every time CBS gave it the responsibility of being an anchor. Lower-rated shows were renewed by other networks while this one was cancelled. Of course, CBS had high standards for their comedies, and they still do. I truly think this one had great potential considering that any other comedy time slot would be an upgrade, and it would have avoided CBS from having to have a regularly-scheduled rerun of The Big Bang Theory this spring. Oh well. This is the one that got away, in my book.
The Millers
The Millers is a show that had absolutely no critical support. I would really like to see a breakdown of its start rating and its end rating, because chances are the rating at the end of an episode was significantly lower than the average rating that we see on multiple ratings sites. Its first season was a huge success in raw numbers, averaging a 2.6 rating. Then again, Rob was a huge success in raw numbers again, and we saw how that one went.
No one really expected The Millers to do all that well when it was announced its second season would not air behind The Big Bang Theory. However, not many people even suspected the show to be pulled five episodes into its season, something that is extremely rare for a non-freshman show.
Its ratings actually weren’t all that bad, but they were definitely low for CBS’s schedule. They are not afraid to pull a show from their schedule in order to bring their spackle veteran (currently Mike & Molly) back on the schedule. I also have another theory that CBS did this in order to try to save the falling 2 Broke Girls. Regardless, a Saturday burnoff starts on July 4 with The McCarthys, a match made in hell. I don’t believe either show has been advertised in months, and many think they are done for good (well, they will be after the burnoff).
The McCarthys
The McCarthys was similar in name, theme, and ratings trends this season as The Millers. it premiered to a very low 1.7, but then held onto much of that for most of its run (spare a single instance of having a 1.1). Still, that is underperforming for a CBS comedy, and got to air 11 episodes on Thursday before being pulled from the schedule. Like most of these other shows, The McCarthys was poorly received by critics, and since ratings tend to go lower for a show in its second season, CBS probably made the right decision in canceling this one. However, I am very surprised that they pulled it from the schedule before airing its final four episodes, replacing it with a rerun of The Big Bang Theory.
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Thanks Hunter for suggesting that we do an article pertaining to CBS comedy--there is always a chance that more on the topic is on the way! This supplements some of our past articles, and I invite any new reader to come read them:
FOX's Animation Domination: http://tvratingsguide.blogspot.com/2015/05/animation-domination-look-back-at-foxs.html
ABC Comedy (Parts 1-3):
http://tvratingsguide.blogspot.com/2015/06/abc-comedy-2009-2010.html
NBC Comedy:
http://tvratingsguide.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-went-wrong-nbc-comedy.html
Do you think CBS was right in canceling these series? Please, let me know what you think in the comments section below, and maybe your comment will inspire a future article!
