Beyond The Baseball TV Grave: Pitch, A 2016 Baseball Drama From The Creator of This Is Us

 

Assessing the Situation...Pitch

Welcome to Assessing the Situation, a spin-off of sorts of FOX Renew/Cancel Watch where notable shows get their own articles to evaluate a) how they are doing, and b) their estimated chances of
coming back next season. This first article is for Pitch, their Thursday night baseball drama that just finished its 10-episode first season. Enjoy!

The Ratings


Above are the Live + Same Day ratings for Pitch in all publicly available demographics. Typically, the most important one is seen as A18-49, but if shows tend to do better in M18-34 or W18-34 than A18-49, that can be noted as it is a harder demographic for advertisers to reach. A young-skew is not the case for Pitch, despite the fact that many of its fellow FOX shows are doing as well or better in an 18-34 demo.

One promising trend, though, is its finale did not end in the red. Rather, episode 7 seemed to be the low note, and there is still enough interest in it so that it has the ability to uptick for its finale. Another promising thing about its ratings is that it doesn't look all that bad when compared to its lead-in, Rosewood. Pitch has either tied or grown out of Rosewood for each of its airings, showing that at the very least its audience isn't artificial. Maybe if paired with a stronger and more compatible show, Pitch could see an increase in ratings. But even with these trends, let's not act like these ratings are remotely good. Its ratings are at just 66% of FOX's non-sports average, putting it behind the vast majority of its programs.

Capped vs Backorder Option
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, showrunner Kevin Falls explained that the show was meant to be capped at 10 episodes from the start, as it was a midseason show initially. However, he did imply that the people behind the show were interested in seeing if they could get a backorder anyways, possibly airing the remaining episodes in the summer, but that plan never came to action. So while we may never know if indeed it was meant to be capped with no option of a backorder or not, the bottom line is it's getting replaced by a kitchen reality show that seemingly came out of nowhere.

Dan Fogelman
Dan Fogelman blessed NBC with This is Us this season, easily the biggest scripted show success since Empire. FOX, meanwhile, got Pitch, a show that rates marginal at best. But like last year's Scream Queens and Ryan Murphy, could FOX keep Pitch in attempt to continue relations with Dan Fogelman, hoping that in the near future he brings them a hit like This is Us? It's definitely possible. Maybe Pitch is an outlier, and Dan Fogelman has many hits to come.

MLB Partnership
Not many broadcast television shows can say that the MLB is a co-producer...actually only one can, and that's Pitch. As such, this show is likely an important asset to the MLB, and is even recognized by the showrunner to be de facto free promotion for the league. It's definitely possible that FOX renews Pitch, moves it to Friday, and uses it to build up hype for the MLB playoffs. Or maybe they air it next spring, when baseball season is fresh. Or maybe it even moves to MLB Network, which seems like a long shot, but maybe they could at least rerun it there. The bottom line is this is a unique partnership, and we don't have any past references to see how big of a role this could play in a renew/cancel decision.

The Assessment
So...what's my assessment? Despite the fact that Pitch's first season has ended, I'm not ruling out a prediction change between now and when its fate comes, depending on if any other news about it comes out and/or we see ratings for midseason shows. A few have done interviews saying that they are high on its chances of returning, but can they really say too much to the contrary? Right now, Pitch is a likely cancelation in my book.

What do you think of my prediction? What's yours? Could any other factors play a role in the renew/cancel decision of Pitch? How do you think it did this season? Let us know in the comments below!

A Look Ahead to FOX's Fall Season

As you may know, I'm slated to cover FOX Renew/Cancel Watch this season again. My only missed predictions last season were Bones and Sleepy Hollow, though I understand completely why they were renewed (click here for more information). But now it's time to look ahead to the fall season, and while I'm not going to make any concrete predictions right now, I can still preview what that first table may just look like. So without further ado, here's my first analysis. I've broken it up into several categories, though when the table comes it'll be back to "Certain to be Renewed", "Likely to be Renewed", etc.

The Obvious Renewals
The Simpsons
Family Guy
Gotham
Empire

The Simpsons is going into its 28th season, still pulls in relatively good ratings, and it's a very strong player in syndication and merchandise. They have way bigger things to worry about than The Simpsons. The same goes for Family Guy; it's not as big as it once was, even in relative ratings, but FOX loves Seth MacFarlane and Family Guy is still one of their highest-rated and reliable shows. On the syndication front, Gotham will only need one more season to get there after this season, though if it struggles this season Warner Brothers may need to reduce the licensing fee (or you know, The CW is always there!). But it's not like Gotham's ratings are terrible, so it should be fine either way. And finally, there's Empire, one of the biggest success story on all of television in recent seasons. Need I say more?

The Promising Newbies
Son of Zorn
Lethal Weapon
Pitch

FOX is really into doing business with Lord Miller Productions these days, with Son of Zorn and midseason entry Making History joining The Last Man On Earth on their schedule. Considering they're premiering it after The OT and it gets probably the best time slot they could offer it and it's very on brand for FOX Sunday, it has everything going for it right now. I can't say whether or not it'll be renewed since we haven't seen ratings, but I can tell you that it looks promising. Similarly, Pitch is getting great attention online and will most likely receive a ton of advertising during the MLB playoffs. Combine that with the fact that its presumed W18-34 skew is something that is highly coveted and we've found ourselves a promising show that may be hindered by its time slot. The time slot that would be most ideal for it would be Wednesdays before Empire, which is instead going to Lethal Weapon, which has time slot hit written all over it.

The Promising Veterans
The Last Man On Earth
New Girl
Scream Queens
Lucifer

Although The Last Man On Earth is far from a ratings powerhouse, it's from Lord Miller Productions and brings in a lot of awards love, more so than Empire or really any other show they air. I can't speak for Season 2 but Season 1 also had a lot of streaming presence due to its young skew and serialized nature. While it's not grandaddied into a renewal like The Simpsons, there are shows that are probably in a little bit more trouble (more on that later). Similarly, there's New Girl, which before last season began I thought for sure would be its last, but it proved to be stable and at least better than their other Tuesday entries. This could very well be its last season, but it wouldn't be because the ratings are terrible, it would because it's getting old. But I think they can get more out of it as they want. Then there's Scream Queens, which apparently sees great C3 and streaming bounces. There's more to it for this show than just the live ratings, and I think it'll be around as long as those jumps are too. And finally, promising midseason entry Lucifer did well last season behind The X-Files and respectable behind Gotham, enough to earn it a renewal and a fall spot. While it's bound to decline a lot this season due to its average being front loaded, its respectable ratings landed it in this category.

The Not Promising Newbie
The Exorcist

The Exorcist and Sleepy Hollow will time share on Fridays this season, and it's already very hard to say which will be the lesser of the worse. There's no hype for it at all, and while that doesn't necessarily mean it won't do well, the other three newbies have much more going for them already than this one does.

The Not Promising Veteran
Rosewood

In recent years, FOX hasn't been known to cancel a show after its second season; though a few of times they've gone three limited seasons. Rosewood may be an exception, and its situation reminds me a lot like Touch's situation a few years back. Touch had poor retention from its lead-in in its first season and the half-hours were ugly. It went from a 3.3 to a 1.3 in the same time slot over the course of 11 episodes. When they downgraded its time slot to Fridays the following season, it held up surprisingly well, down only 67% year-to-year. OK, so maybe that's not to great. And considering it finished with a string of 0.6s in the 2012-13 season, it pretty obviously go canceled. Like Touch, Rosewood is going from a show that did OK in its plum time slot that had half-hours to show it only did well because of the time slot, and now is seeing a downgrade to having to go against The Big Bang Theory, football, and Grey's Anatomy. It doesn't see any of those bounces that FOX brags about a lot of their shows getting in DVR or streaming, and doesn't hit those young demographics when it airs by itself, so I wouldn't be surprised to see Rosewood gone. Maybe it'll hold well, but that 0.8 finale says it won't.

The Respectable
Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a workplace comedy distributed by NBC Universal that snuck its way onto FOX. It's like if ABC randomly decided that instead of picking up American Housewife CBS was going to buy it from them. Brooklyn Nine-Nine had great exposure on Sunday, but lost all that momentum and then some when it had to anchor Tuesday nights unsuccessfully. It was surrounded by duds, but this fourth season was pretty much ensured one way or another for syndication purposes anyway. It doesn't do terrible, but FOX has a few new comedies this season, and if enough of them hit then Brooklyn Nine-Nine could be in trouble, especially since they don't own it. This season, it only gets harder, as it'll be facing The Voice, NCIS, and The Middle. Maybe Hulu would be interested in a fifth season if need be, but for now, while I can't group it with New Girl in the promising category, it's also no Rosewood.

Fates Decided
Bob's Burgers--Renewed
Bones--Ending

What are your thoughts? Make sure to leave them below, and once ratings start coming in look out for the first FOX Renew/Cancel Watch of the season!

New Show Hit/Miss Fall 2016 - Pitch

This feature examines which factors may affect if a show does well or poorly. Any show can go either way, and it is difficult to know before the premiere. These are the factors that may cause Pitch to succeed or fail.


What May Cause Pitch to be a Hit?

Competition should have little effect
Notorious, Mom, Life in Pieces, and Chicago Med are the shows that Pitch will be up against. The CBS comedies and Notorious may have some crossover audience with Pitch, but the comedies don't get huge ratings, and the crossover audience likely won't be that large, and Pitch's trailer was more liked than that of Notorious, according to the trailer-watching article.

World Series promotion
FOX airs the World Series in October, which would be the perfect place to advertise a show about baseball. This could bring new viewers to Pitch, helping the show find its audience.


What May Cause Pitch to be a Miss for FOX?

Hardly anyone watched the trailer
According to the article on trailer views, Pitch's trailer is the least-watched of any of the new fall shows, far behind any of the other FOX shows. People have to know a show exists to watch it; this is a big problem.

Incompatible and weak lead-in
A police procedural with a male lead is far from the best lead-in for a baseball-themed comedy-drama with a female lead. This makes Rosewood an incompatible lead-in for Pitch. But, even worse, Rosewood scored low ratings airing without Empire on Wednesdays, so I don't expect them to improve when it moves to Thursday.

Lack of success for Back in the Game
Back in the Game is the only sports show to have aired on the broadcast networks in the last five seasons. It was also about baseball and featured a female lead, though it was a half-hour comedy instead of an hour-long comedy-drama. Despite airing in the Wednesdays at 8:30 timeslot on ABC, it was pulled from the schedule after 10 episodes.


What to Expect for Pitch?

I think that the factor of its lead-in will have an effect much bigger than any of the other factors listed here. Maybe it could be a successful show on Wednesdays, but not on Thursdays.


Which factors do you think will be most in play causing Pitch to be a hit or a miss? Leave your thoughts in the comments!


New Show Hit/Miss Articles
The Good Place
This is Us
Timeless
Lethal Weapon