A woman playing professional baseball is an unusual story but FOX was betting that the new Pitch TV series would help them attract an audience to Thursday nights — a highly competitive evening for television. Has this “big swing” been successful? Is Pitch worth watching? Cancel or keep it?
The Pitch TV show follows the inspirational story of a young pitcher (Kylie Bunbury) who becomes the first woman to play Major League Baseball. Although she’s been groomed for this moment for much of her life, she’s embarking on a baseball career under the glare of the white-hot media spotlight. The rest of the cast includes Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Ali Larter, Mark Consuelo, Dan Lauria, Mo McRae, Meagan Holder, and Tim Jo.
The series launched on September 22nd to a 1.06 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 4.23 million viewers. It was a disappointing start in the ratings for sure, especially since the series had garnered a lot of positive reviews.
Unfortunately, the numbers haven’t gotten any better and the numbers have fallen each week. The fourth installment, which aired October 13th, attracted a dismal 0.76 in the demo with 2.91 million viewers.
It’s important to remember that CBS has been airing highly-rated NFL football games for the first four weeks of the season. Some of that audience might otherwise watch Pitch. Though NFL football won’t be airing on CBS on October 27th, a game will be airing on NFLN. Unless FOX moves Pitch to another night, the series will be airing opposite football for awhile.
Though the ratings are very poor, FOX probably won’t cancel Pitch just yet. Most of the network’s programming is struggling in the ratings right now so they have many timeslot problems to solve. But, will Pitch survive to see a second season? That seems highly unlikely unless they can figure out a way to improve the ratings.
But, what do you think? Do you like watching the Pitch TV series on FOX? Should it be cancelled? Is it worth watch? Cancel or keep it?
I enjoyed watching pitch. Hope its renewed. very novel concept.
One of the reasons I refused to watch this show (despite being a big baseball fan) was that it felt like more left wing media politically correct crap. It could have been successful as a female NBA player as it is a more progressive sport, but it is still hard to suspend belief that a female could compete in men’s professional sports unless she were a specialist. Women have already competed as hockey goalies and place kickers so maybe a story that centered around one of those specialties would have been more realistic and less science fiction. You could have… Read more »
Please bring it back! Great show to with your family.
keep it loved that show really dying to see what happens next
I really missed the anticipation every week of how Jennie would handle each situation, and the interracial romance,…..Mind Blowing. You would think in this times when women are being strongly supported for standing up for their selves that Fox would rise to the occasion and want to be known as the network to say something other than …get beaten, raped or murdered to be known! Bring Back Pitch!