Which ABC TV shows will be cancelled or renewed for the 2011-12 season? Modern Family remains the network’s highest-rated show and ABC often uses reruns to plug holes in their schedule. Will they overdo it? Grey’s Anatomy continues to be very popular but it has lost steam. Though aging, Desperate Housewives continues to be a solid player for ABC. Private Practice and Cougar Town are tied for fourth place in the all-important demo. Meanwhile, Castle, The Middle, and Brothers & Sisters are tied for sixth place.

Better with You is performing decently but consistently loses part of the lead-in audience from The Middle. Couldn’t another show do better? No Ordinary Family seems to have leveled off at a 1.9 rating and that’s far from a success. Detroit 1-8-7 continues to struggle. It doesn’t seem very likely that either will be back next season.

On the news/reality front, Skating with the Stars is a disaster and, when Nanny Jo leaves at the end of this season, ABC will have no need to try to keep Supernanny going.

Below is a list of the regular ABC TV shows and their 2010-11 season average ratings to date. It only incorporates the ratings for original episodes that have aired this season (no repeats). The data is sorted by the 18-49 demographic averages, the group that advertisers will pay the most to reach and, therefore, how the network measures success.

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 Whole Truth and My Generation). 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.

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.

Raw data: © The Nielsen Company via Media Week.

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

Image courtesy ABC.