Cancellation Watch: The Walking Dead Pulls Huge Numbers for its Mid-Season Finale, No Good News for Constantine or Resurrection


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.

Ratings results for the sci fi / fantasy airing Friday Nov 28th thru Monday Dec 1st (analysis and metric definitions below):

Haven Syfy Fri 11/28 7 PM
Rating: 0.2 | Tot Viewers (MM): 0.9 | StD Rating: 0.2 | Target: 0.4 | Cancellation Alert: Medium

It’s numbers are still low, but the Shat-man is coming to save the day next year.

Grimm NBC Fri 11/28 9 PM
Rating: 1.2 | Tot Viewers (MM): 5.2 | StD Rating: 1.3 | Target: 1.2 | Cancellation Alert: Low

It slipped on Friday, but call it a Thanksgiving hangover.  Expect it to rebound this week.

Constantine NBC Fri 11/28 10 PM
Rating: 0.9 | Tot Viewers (MM): 3.3 | StD Rating: 1.0 | Target: 1.2 | Cancellation Alert: High

As production has already been halted on this show, it doesn’t get to take a mulligan like Grimm does (more on this one below).

Z Nation Syfy Fri 11/28 10 PM
Rating: 0.5 | Tot Viewers (MM): 1.6 | StD Rating: 0.5 | Target: 0.4 | Cancellation Alert: Renewed

Decent numbers for a Syfy show on a typically low-viewership night.  This one keeps rolling along.

Once Upon A Time ABC Sun 11/30 8 PM
Rating: 2.0 | Tot Viewers (MM): 6.3 | StD Rating: 2.7 | Target: 1.8 | Cancellation Alert: Low

It slipped in the ratings, but that’s not un-expected on post-Thanksgiving Sunday.  Expect it to jump back up.

Resurrection ABC Sun 11/30 9 PM
Rating: 0.8 | Tot Viewers (MM): 3.6 | StD Rating: 1.5 | Target: 2.0 | Cancellation Alert: Elevated

(Numbers based on the preliminaries)  Struggling shows don’t get as much leeway on typically low-viewership nights and these numbers have it at The CW levels.  It’s definitely in trouble at this point (more on this one below).

The Walking Dead AMC Sun 11/30 9 PM
Rating: 7.6 | Tot Viewers (MM): 14.8 | StD Rating: 7.5 | Target: 2.0 | Cancellation Alert: Renewed

Can anything slow this show down?  It just keeps delivering monster numbers (more on this one below).

The Originals CW Mon 12/1 8 PM
Rating: Preempted | Tot Viewers (MM): 1.3 | StD Rating: 0.7 | Target: 0.7 | Cancellation Alert: Low

This show was preempted on Monday but returns with a new episode next week.

Gotham FOX Mon 11/24 8 PM
Rating: 2.3 | Tot Viewers (MM): 6.1 | StD Rating: 2.5 | Target: 2.0 | Cancellation Alert: Low

This show is on hiatus until January 5th.

Sleepy Hollow FOX Mon 12/1 9 PM
Rating: 1.5 | Tot Viewers (MM): 4.5 | StD Rating: 1.6 | Target: 2.0 | Cancellation Alert: Low

(Numbers based on the preliminaries) Not great numbers for its Fall finale, but it is still doing well in comparison to the rest of FOX’s shows and looks good for a third season renewal.

the-walking-dead-season4Ratings High: On Sunday night, The Walking Dead pulled a 7.6 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 14.8 million total viewers for its mid-season finale. That’s lower than its record setting season premiere rating (8.7) but it did set a high mark for a mid-season finale for the show. In fact, it was up 23% from the 6.1 score the show had it this point last year. In addition, it had the highest rating for the week among all programming across the broadcast and cable channels in the 18-49 demo including football. It’s becoming a broken record, but this show just keeps walking over all the other competition and doesn’t look like it is going to slow down any time soon.

On the Hot Seat: On the other end of the spectrum are NBC’s Constantine and ABC’s Resurrection, both of which continue to struggle. On Friday, the former show had on a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demo with 3.2 million total viewers. Sure, you can pass that off as a Thanksgiving hangover just like Grimm in the lead-in hour, but Constantine—with production on the first season already halted—doesn’t have much leeway and needs to get the best numbers it can with every episode it has left to air. On Sunday, Resurrection plummeted to a new low as it scraped up only a 0.8 rating with 3.6 million total viewers. That has it in the CW territory as far as its ratings, and ABC won’t stand for that long. Yes, you can probably play the Thanksgiving hangover card here as well and point out that it was MIA the last two weeks, but that won’t go too far with network execs. This show only has fourteen episodes ordered for its second season, and at the moment it is looking unlikely that more will be forthcoming.  I am moving it to an Elevated Cancellation Alert status and expect it to disappear from Sunday nights early next year.

Be sure keep an eye on the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for the latest numbers and any breaking news throughout the week.  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:

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

Tot Viewers: Estimated total viewers to tune in to the episode for same day viewing

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

Target: The estimated average rating that the show needs to sustain to get renewed.

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.

Ratings Source: TV by the Numbers and ShowBuzzDaily

Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2014 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.

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