Last spring, ABC renewed venerable comedy Scrubs and newbie Better Off Ted, despite their low ratings. Now that they’re back, the network is in a hurry to get rid of them.
Scrubs follows hospital life as seen through the eyes of Dr. J.D. Dorian (Zach Braff). After having left Sacred Heart last season, he’s returned to help teach a new crop of med students. Others in the current cast include Donald Faison, John C. McGinley, Ken Jenkins, Sarah Chalke, Eliza Coupe, Kerry Bishe, Michael Mosley, and Dave Franco.
Better Off Ted follows Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington) and the other employees at Veridian Dynamics, a heartless technology company. The rest of the cast includes Andrea Anders, Jonathan Slavin, Malcolm Barrett, and Portia de Rossi.
Based simply on the ratings, neither ABC sitcom should have been renewed last season. Scrubs had dwindled to an average of 4.97 million viewers and a 2.2 rating in the 18-49 demographic. It was ultimately saved because ABC’s production studio produces the show and another season would bring more money in syndication.
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Last May, Better Off Ted had only aired half of its completed episodes and was averaging a disappointing 1.76 rating and 4.39 million. Though the ratings were quite low, ABC decided to bring the sitcom back for another season. The network programmers supposedly liked the pairing of Ted and Scrubs and hoped that the ratings would improve. When the network began airing the rest of Ted’s first season during the summer, the ratings dropped much further, to an average of 0.74 in the demo and 2.09 million viewers.
The sitcoms have now both returned for the 2009-10 schedule and the ratings are still terrible. Scrubs kicked off this season with a low 2.0 rating in the demo and only 4.5 million viewers. The numbers have dropped since then and last Tuesday’s episode brought in a 1.8 rating and 4.26 million.
Ted debuted with a 1.5 in the demo and 3.82 million. Last week’s installment attracted just a 1.3 and 3.18 million.
To little surprise, ABC has decided to burn off the unaired episodes of both series as quickly as possible. Single installments of each sitcom will air tomorrow night and on the 29th. On New Year’s Day, two episodes of Ted and one of Scrubs will follow the Rose Bowl Game. Then, beginning on January 5th, two installments of each sitcom will run on Tuesday nights. By the end of the month, both sitcoms are expected to have run through their full 13 episode orders.
While the network hasn’t indicated that either series has been cancelled, the decision to burn through the seasons in 60 days certainly isn’t a vote of confidence. Neither Scrubs nor Ted is expected to return, especially in light of the much better performance from newcomers Modern Family and Cougar Town.
What do you think? Do you think Better Off Ted and Scrubs will be cancelled? Will you be sorry to see either one end?
Image courtesy ABC.
Ted is the funniest thing on tv. If those in charge cancel it I hope one of the other networks can pick it up. It was very poorly promoted. Don
Better Off Ted is SO good! I have no idea when it is on, I just watch it online. No wonder the ratings aren’t good – the marketing for it is nonexistent.
horrible marketing and bad timing is whats ******** up BOT, Scrubs needs to be canceled honestly, they screwed up the chemistry and the show just isnt itself anymore it feels like one of those crappy “the new class” shows Better off ted on the other hand is one of the only and may i say thee funniest show on TV, it blows away modern family and couger town, and hell even the office in my view, its ABC’s poor placement on their schedule, poor advertising and just plain idiots mistakes that have led to low ratings… BOT is a spectacular… Read more »
Oh, by the way, one more thing to add… HORRIBLE MARKETING! I didn’t know the second season was ever on until it was over, then I just had to catch up and be pissed. I loved the first season…
I 100% agree with Greg, I watched almost all of Better off Ted online and love it, if the young male demographic is what they’re going for, the tech-savvy and TV watching among us, especially those that are going to watch a smart semi-sciencey show like BoTed I mean, I hate to break it to you fellas but we’re gonna watch it online whenever we feel like it. 😉 Too bad, I would have watched it on ABC.com with their commercials too but it lags up so bad and they don’t have any episodes, so I just pirated the entire… Read more »
This is truly one of the best, smartest, most clever television series ever to hit the airwaves. Yes, the network has done a terrible job of advertising this wonderful show. I only saw it this year accidentally. I couldn’t believe how absolutely funny it is. After a couple weeks, it was not scheduled. Oh, ABC, don’t cancel this show. Here’s a link to a petition to save “Ted.”
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-better-off-ted.html
Obviously controlling interest of ABC has been bought out by Veridian Dynamics in attempt to improve PR by canceling the show. When someone says “Nothing to see here, move along” it means the opposite. Too bad ABC is going to let this one go… at least sell it to FOX so they can have at least 1 hit comedy that doesn’t rely on poop jokes!
Better off Ted is the best. It has a great set of actors and writers and has provided some of the most memorable one-lines. While I have been a fan of Scrubs in the past the new format doesn’t seem to be working, so they need to ditch it and move Better off Ted to Wednesday Nights to make that night of ABC’s comedies complete.
Better off ted rocks. The funniest show on TV. Yet I never new about it if were not for HULU. Maybe if ABC did a better job of promoting the show people would watch it. I just turned my family on to the show and they love it to but never new about it until recently. Frack you ABC!
Better Off Ted is a great show, but I never watched it during its scheduled time; I watched it on hulu.com on my schedule. There is a huge after-airing market online that the networks ignore to their peril. The Internet is the future of TV, and the networks need to realize that. So all this talk about the right slot is (or should be) beside the point completely. People want to watch TV on their schedule, not the one dictated by the networks. If ratings do not take the online market into account, then they are ignoring the biggest market… Read more »
They should definitely renew Better off Ted! It’s intelligent, yet silly. I think that along with Modern Family it’s one of the funniest shows on currently. As a doctor I liked Scrubs the original couple of seasons then the writing went to crap and it got too silly and inane. I hardly ever like medical shows. I really didn’t care for the new show. The rich kid completely ruined it. Totally unpalatable and annoying. Back to Better off Ted: Just because it doesn’t fit a mold doesn’t mean people won’t give it a chance if they give it a good… Read more »
I think ABC is too skidish to give Better of Ted a fighting chance.
It may be the funniest show they have had in 13 years but they do not know what markets it could saturate. ABC should sell this show to FOX, as they give people a chance to find real funny shows. Many of their funniest hits tanked for their first 2-3 years.
Funny is contagious but like the flu if you kill it off early enough of it won’t spread around.
If better off ted had a better pairing it would be doing great in ratings. I have no clue what time the show is on, but if it’s after scrubs then thats the reason the show is tanking.
Better of Ted was a great show and it’s a shame to see it go. 🙁
I liked Scrubs originally, but the last season or so it really started to tank.
Dave
They ruined Scrubs, but Better Off Ted was AWESOME!
They marketed the show terribly. If i would have known how funny the nerds and scientists are, i would have watched from the get go. Ted is great, but his cast made this show. The commercials picked such poor scenes, like they wanted it to get 0 viewers