V: Is the ABC Series Already Doomed to be Cancelled?

V tv showThough the television networks don’t seem to notice, remakes of old series rarely meet with much success. While shows like Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, and Melrose Place bring name recognition, they rarely live up to expectations. Still, ABC moved ahead with their plans to revive V. Though it was initially successful, will it ultimately meet the same fate?

Like the original, the new V revolves around the arrival of aliens to the planet Earth. While the visitors profess that they’ve come in peace, their ulterior motives slowly become clear. The cast includes Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, Morris Chestnut, Joel Gretsch, Logan Huffman, Lourdes Benedicto, Laura Vandervoort, and Scott Wolf.

The new V started out strong with a 5.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 14.3 million total viewers. That was the highest rated debut of the 2009-10 season.

Unfortunately, a large percentage of those viewers didn’t return for the second week. Episode two brought in a 3.8 rating and 10.7 million.

Week three dropped yet again, to a 3.1 in the demo and 9.26 million viewers. Last week, the numbers evened off and episode four attracted a third place 3.1 rating for 18-49 viewers and a total viewership of 9.2 million. While those numbers are pretty good on their own, they do represent a 40% drop in the demo when compared to the premiere.

Will the long hiatus kill the new V?

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If the ratings held steady, the series would likely be headed for a second season. Unfortunately, in part due to backstage problems, ABC has made the risky decision to split up the season into two parts. The first group of V episodes has finished airing and now, the series isn’t expected to return until after the Winter Olympics in March 2010.

If recent viewership trends have taught us anything, they’ve shown that long breaks can be disastrous for a serial drama’s ratings. People naturally become interested in other shows and any momentum is lost. What’s more, because storylines are ongoing and complicated, few new people feel inclined to start watching midseason.

Shows like Lost and Heroes saw significant drops in viewership when they took long midseason breaks. They both had very strong ratings and a lot of buzz going into their respective hiatuses. Fortunately, enough viewers returned to keep them on the air.

TV show supportThe new V doesn’t have nearly as much viewer buzz and can’t afford to lose many more viewers. If a high percentage of people don’t return to watch the second half of the season, V won’t survive and will be cancelled.

What do you think? Are you anxiously awaiting the show’s return? Will the hiatus kill the new V and cause its cancellation?


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{ 170 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Rebekah July 27, 2010 at 5:02 am

I really hope that it doesnt get cancelled. All the shows that I love are getting cancelled and I would really hate for this one to get cancelled too…

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2 Christina July 31, 2010 at 2:46 am

I hope it doesn’t get cancelled. It took a couple of epsiodes to get to the nuts and bolts of story and suspect thats why there was a drop in audience in the early stages. I’m hooked now as I jumped back in when it got more interesting

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3 Rory August 10, 2010 at 1:35 pm

BRING THE SHOW BACK !!!! Finally something worth watching!

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4 Rory August 10, 2010 at 1:38 pm

I am so sick of all the bull#%&* reality shows that get on! Put V back on….it was
just getting ramped up! All good shows take a bit of time to work out the kinks!
Fire the heads of the networks and hire me…..I am a writer etc….I can see good
work when it is in front of me, not the mind numbing crap that has been showing on other channels!

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5 Andrea August 26, 2010 at 11:06 pm

the new V is just as good or better then the first one the fact is it’s not as 80″s and that gives it it’s own look and that’s really good story goes with world events thats also good.

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6 Duh September 3, 2010 at 6:10 pm

Have you people been living in a cave? Season 2 has been filming for a couple of weeks already.

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7 SkyREAD September 7, 2010 at 6:12 pm

I think they should really consider their online audience. More and more people are cutting the cable and smashing the dish to take control of their media instead of forking out ridiculous sums of money to be force fed fecal matter. Online entertainment is the future.

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8 irish jo September 10, 2010 at 3:14 am

V is great please bring it back to our tv screens…….my whole familt love to watch it together.

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