FOX TV Show Rankings for 2010-11 season [week of 12/19/10 update]

Which FOX TV shows will be cancelled or renewed for the 2011-12 season? Most of the schedule was in repeats for the holiday week but there was a couple exceptions. On Wednesday, the network aired the sixth original episode of Human Target. It was down about 13% in the 18-49 demo with a 1.4 rating and 5.75 million total viewers. That brought its season rank down just a bit.

FOX also debuted a new game show called Million Dollar Money Drop. This series’ performance wasn’t great but wasn’t too bad either, especially for a week where overall viewership was down. Word is that FOX intends to order more episodes but we’ll have to wait and see when or if that happens.

Below is a list of the regular FOX TV shows and their 2010-11 season average ratings to date. It only incorporates the ratings for original episodes that have aired this season, not repeats. The data is sorted by the 18-49 demographic averages, the group that advertisers will pay the most to reach. The “compared to” column reflects whether the demo average has gone up, down, or stayed the same since last week.

Demo rank	Scripted TV Shows	Average viewers (millions)	Average 18-49 demo	Compared to last week
1	Glee	11.61	4.8	---
2	House	10.08	3.8	---
3	The Simpsons	8.20	3.7	---
3	Family Guy	7.53	3.7	---
5	The Cleveland Show	6.41	3.0	---
6	American Dad	5.71	2.7	---
7	Raising Hope	6.26	2.6	---
8	Bones	9.28	2.5	---
9	Lie To Me	5.54	1.9	---
9	Fringe	5.08	1.9	---
11	Human Target	5.92	1.6
11	Running Wilde	3.72	1.6	---
13	Lone Star (cancelled)	3.66	1.1	---
14	The Good Guys (cancelled)	2.46	0.7	---
Demo rank	News or Reality TV Shows	Average viewers (millions)	Average 18-49 demo	Compared to last week
1	Hell's Kitchen 9pm	6.33	2.7	---
1	Hell's Kitchen 8pm	6.03	2.7	---
3	Million Dollar Money Drop	5.40	1.8	new
4	America's Most Wanted	4.83	1.6	---
5	Cops	4.45	1.5	---

The closer a show is to the bottom of the list, the closer it is to being cancelled (if it hasn’t been cancelled already like The Good Guys and Lone Star). If it’s closer to the top of the list, it’s more likely to be renewed. Shows that are in the middle (“on the bubble”) can be a little tougher to call. Their future typically comes down to other factors like overall costs, contracts, who produces the show, and what new shows are on the horizon.

The list has been separated into two sections. Of the two, scripted programming is the most expensive. News and reality TV shows are less expensive to produce but the networks can’t program just news/reality (though they might like to since they are less of a financial risk).

It should be noted that Friday and Saturday nights are the least watched evenings of television so ratings for shows on those nights are lower. The networks understand this and take it into account. However, regardless of when a show is aired, its production costs remain the same. Ultimately, it must still be profitable enough for the network to keep ordering more episodes.

Raw data: © The Nielsen Company via Media Week. Nielsen doesn’t release the final Friday and Saturday night ratings until a few days later. The ratings with an “*” may change slightly once the final numbers are released.

What do you think? Which shows do you think won’t survive to see a new season?