Cancellation Watch: The Summer Shows Continue to Drop in the Ratings, Vampire Diaries Will End With Its 8th Season, Plus the Ratings Roundup

Unless otherwise noted, the ratings numbers below are based on the final overnights and may vary slightly from the preliminaries reported on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site.

braindead-cbs-cancelledRatings Results of Interest: We may be experiencing record heat across the country, but it sure isn’t keeping people inside in front of their televisions (unless the are all watching the Republican National Convention).  On Sunday, freshman CBS series Braindead had its first airing on its new night (shifting from Mondays) and it slipped to a series low 0.3 rating based on the overnights for the 18-49 demographic with 2.3 million total viewers.  You can pretty much consider this show in burn-off mode at this point.  Over on TNT, The Last Ship actually improved, but only just slightly to a 0.55 with 2.4 million total viewers. That show has settled into notably lower numbers than its second season and it is pretty expensive to produce, so I am moving it to a Moderate Cancellation Alert level at this point. I still think it has a decent chance of getting a fourth season, but that could be its last. On Friday, Syfy’s Killjoys slipped to a series low as it could only manage a 0.12 rating with 490k total viewers.  That network’s other space show, Dark Matter, did a little better on the night at a 0.13 score with 560k total viewers, but both are at all-time lows.  They are still performing better than Syfy’s Spring entries and they do have the partnership with the Canadian Space Channel (where they continue to perform well) to help offset production costs.  But with their linear viewing numbers at theses levels, I have to move them both to a Moderate Cancellation Alert level.  On Wednesday, USA’s Mr. Robot slipped to a series low 0.30 rating with 800k total viewers, but that critically acclaimed show is probably still okay for now.  On Tuesday, CBS’ Zoo dropped to its lowest numbers with a 0.7 rating and 4.1 million total viewers.  Those are pretty low numbers even for a Summer show, and this one is rather expensive to produce.  The network does have a streaming partnership with Netflix, but I still consider it a Bubble entry at this point and I have raised the Cancellation Alert level to Moderate.

Final Season: Coming as no surprise, The CW announced at San Diego Comic-Con that the eighth season of Vampire Diaries will be its last.  The network had previously said that the show was not necessarily ending with the coming season, but everything has pointed to this one ending sooner rather than later.  It will at least get the chance to wrap up its major storylines and it is is possible that some of the characters can continue in the spin-off series The Originals.

Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy shows airing Monday July 18th thru Sunday July 24th (metric definitions below):

(Links are to the show pages on this site with season to date ratings results and status updates)

Series Airs Rating % Chng Tot Viewers STD Avg Net Avg Cancel Alert
12 Monkeys Syfy, Mon 9 PM 0.1 -20.0% 0.4 0.1 n/a Renewed
Hunters Syfy, Mon 12 AM Series Ended n/a n/a 0.1 n/a Cancelled
Containment CW, Tue 9 PM 0.3 0.0% 0.9 0.4 0.6 Cancelled
Zoo CBS, Tue 10 PM 0.7 -12.5% 4.1 0.8 1.5 Moderate
Scream MTV, Tue 10 PM 0.2 -20.0% 0.4 0.2 n/a Low
Wayward Pines FOX, Wed 9 PM 0.7 0.0% 2.0 0.7 1.5 Moderate
Mr Robot USA, Wed 10 PM 0.3 -30.2% 0.8 0.0 n/a Low
Beauty and the Beast CW, Thu 9 PM 0.2 0.0% 0.7 0.2 0.6 Final Season
Killjoys Syfy, Fri 9 PM 0.1 -33.3% 0.5 0.2 n/a Moderate
Outcast CIN, Fri 10 PM 0.1 -37.5% 0.2 0.1 n/a Renewed
Dark Matter Syfy, Fri 10 PM 0.1 -13.3% 0.6 0.2 n/a Moderate
Fear the Walking Dead AMC, Sun 9 PM On Hiatus n/a n/a 2.2 n/a Renewed
The Last Ship TNT, Sun 9 PM 0.6 +5.8% 2.5 0.5 n/a Moderate
Preacher AMC, Sun 10 PM 0.6 -3.2% 1.6 0.6 n/a Renewed
Braindead CBS, Mon 10 PM 0.3 -25.0% 2.3 0.5 1.5 Elevated

Chart Activity: There were no genre entries the  Weekly Nielsen Twitter Rating Top 10 for the week. Zoo managed to improved to Number 21 on the broadcast network Top 25 based on total viewers even though its viewership numbers were down from the prior week.

(Updated for the broadcast network and cable Top 25 chart activity)

Series Chart Curr Wk Rank Prior Wk Rank
Zoo Broadcast Net Top 25 (Total Viewers) 21 25

Be sure keep an eye out for the latest numbers and any breaking news throughout the week at the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site. You can see the status of all the currently airing sci fi / fantasy shows at the Cancellation Watch page and also the latest Sci Fi TV Power Rankings post. And for more information on where I get these numbers and how I make my Cancellation Alert assessments, check out the Cancelled Sci Fi FAQ.

Metric Definitions:

Series: (R) indicates a repeat airing

Rating: Overnight rating in the 18-49 demographic for same day viewing based on the final numbers unless otherwise noted

% Chng: The percentage change +/- for this week’s rating vs. last week’s rating (if a new episode aired last week).

Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers (age 2+) to tune in to the episode for same day viewing.

StD Rating: Season to date average for the rating metric tracked above.

Net Avg:  The season to date average rating for the network for non-sports, non-special, non-repeat programming.  This data is available for the broadcast networks only.

Cancellation Alert: My prediction of the likelihood that a show will get cancelled. From least to most likely the statuses are Low, Moderate, Medium, Elevated, and High.

Source: ShowBuzzDaily and TV by the Numbers

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