NBC Renew/Cancel Week 2: The Traitors: New Blood is a Bloody Disappointment

This week on the second NBC Renew/Cancel of the season, I take a look at NBC's other new fall series, reality spinoff The Traitors: New Blood. Plus, a looks at the increasing hopes for a second season of Line of Fire.

Certain Cancellation:
N/A

Likely Cancellation:

N/A

Leans Cancellation:
Line of Fire (0.21, 0.17-0.24)

Leans Renewal:
N/A

Likely Renewal:
The Traitors: New Blood (0.28, 0.24-0.33)
The Voice (0.40, 0.36-0.44)

Certain Renewal:
Dateline NBC (0.22, 0.20-0.24)
Saturday Night Live (0.76, 0.81-0.71)

Coming Soon:
Chicago Fire
Chicago Med
Chicago PD
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
Happy's Place
Law & Order: SVU
Law & Order
Newlyweds
The Rockford Files
St. Denis Medical
Sunset PI

The Traitors New Blood: The Traitors has been a huge success for Peacock since its debut. It's one of the shows keeping Peacock afloat (along with Love Island USA) amid their struggles to find success with scripted originals. It's not surprising that NBCUniversal decided to try to transfer that streaming success story to broadcast with New Blood, featuring everyday civilians playing the popular game show. It's hard to get a firm grasp of how strong it is just yet, given it has yet to air with the rest of the Thursday lineup, and was the first NBC series to premiere, all while airing against hit summer reality show Big Brother. What we have seen on linear, however, has not been very impressive.

Its debut was solid enough. A 0.33 in the key demo is very respectable these days, and will likely be one of the higher series premieres this season. However, it hasn't stabilized yet. Its second episode (airing just behind the premiere) dropped to a 0.28, and it was down the next week, too. Its 0.26 at 8 PM was a 21% drop from the premiere, and the 0.24 at 9 PM was already lower than all but one SVU episodes in that slot last season. It needs to stabilize, and tonight will be its clearest test. It'll have solid competition from CBS, but that competition will likely have less of an audience overlap than Big Brother. It's also coming off a week off, as it was on a brief pause for the MLB playoffs. NBC certainly hasn't let up on promoting it, airing a repeat just two days ago behind The Voice. It has to do well here, or NBC may have to admit that this experiment isn't the success they were hoping for.

That's not to call New Blood a total misfire. All reports indicate that it's doing just fine on Peacock. Perhaps Traitors fans are just so used to watching the show there that they aren't in a rush to watch it the night it airs on NBC when they can simply watch the next day on the streamer they've always watched it on. The show has made the Nielsen streaming charts and often ranks near the top of Peacock's daily top ten chart. Its premiere drew over six million viewers in MP+3 ratings, meaning the episodes added roughly four million viewers on streaming and DVR in the days following the debut. So, while the linear ratings may just be OK, the show is doing fine overall. What does that mean for its future?

New Blood is probably safe from being canceled. The Traitors franchise is clearly a huge hit for Peacock, and its NBC performance isn't anywhere near bad enough to get it totally canceled. But NBC could run into some scheduling issues. They don't really have a ton of room, and its scheduling has already been odd this season, airing four episodes before the rest of the lineup has even premiered, and being off the air by the end of November. There's also no guarantee it'll even work as part of the Wednesday lineup - a young-skewing reality competition series is not a natural companion for older-skewing police/legal procedurals. And that is why I'm not starting it as a certain renewal, despite being certain it will be back. There is a possibility that New Blood could just shift to airing on Peacock in upcoming seasons, since it clearly thrives there. That would look like an admission of failure, but it could possibly be what's best for the show. I'm not saying that's the most likely scenario. It's too early to know where it'll settle on NBC. But it's an option that's available, because I highly doubt NBC would want to cancel the show entirely after the encouraging streaming ratings we're already seeing. It starts as a likely renewal, despite the mixed results.

Line of Fire: I already started Line of Fire in a more charitable position than I had anticipated last week, and I'm very grateful I did. Its premiere was very weak, and its sub-50% retention was far from an encouraging sign for its future. Its opening week on Peacock didn't show many signs of momentum, and I was ready to essentially write it off. However, I cooled on it after NBC's reports of a strong post-premiere rise, which hinted at a second-week increase. Once the ratings for episode two finally arrived, we learned that it did, indeed, rise in its second episode, and by quite a strong amount. It rose to a 0.24, an increase of roughly 40%. Its retention from The Voice remains modest, but that's to be expected for a 10 PM series with a hit lead-in. The week-to-week growth is really impressive, and a great sign. It's also improved on the Peacock charts, and whether that represents an actual increase in streaming viewership or is simply Peacock giving it a stronger push to their subscribers, it's still another positive sign. I remain skeptical that the show is here to stay, especially given that The Voice may drop heavily from these rosy early-season numbers (it always does after the audition phase, and starting at 9 has taken a toll on it the last two seasons). I'm going to leave it as a leans cancellation prediction, but things continue to look better and better for the series as time goes on.

Interactive Schedule:

The TV Ratings Guide	8:00	8:30	9:00	10:00
Mon	The Voice			Line of Fire
Tues	NBA on NBC
Wed	Chicago Med		Chicago Fire	Chicago PD
Thurs	The Traitors: New Blood		Law & Order: SVU	Law & Order
Fri	Happy's Place	Newlyweds	Dateline NBC
Sat	College Football on NBC
Sun	Sunday Night Football