Fox True Power Rankings, May 2014

The upfront extravaganza is finally here! Every weekday for the next three weeks, this blog will have a meaty piece of coverage surrounding the annual schedule releases. It starts this week with the season's final edition of the True Power Rankings, the SHOW-centric half of the upfront preview, digging deep into the merits of individual shows by network. Next week come the Upfront Questions, the SCHEDULE-centric look ahead to upfront week. The following week, the schedules come out, and with them come the Upfront Answers.

The True/A18-49 averages cover the last one-third of aired episodes this season through April 27, rounded up.

Other May True Power Rankings: ABC | CBS | NBC | Fox | CW

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Fox Comedies		True	A18-49	Skew	y2y	Counted Eps
The Anchors... Right?
1	Family Guy	2.17	2.20	63%	-14%	6
2	The Simpsons	1.82	1.82	57%	-10%	6
3	New Girl	1.64	1.36	64%	-27%	7

Cosmos marked a very rare departure from an 8:00-10:00 cartoon block on Sunday, but I don't think it's the beginning of a trend. Two big reasons: 1) Fox has a somewhat shockingly high volume of animated stuff in development. Presumably at least one of them should be able to make it to the fall. And more importantly, 2) for all the talk about declines for The Simpsons and Family Guy, they're not declining markedly more than primetime in general. Fox, as a network, definitely is declining markedly more than primetime in general. So the two-hour cartoon lineup becomes increasingly valuable to Fox with the rest of the week such a dumpster fire.

Just a few weeks ago, I'd have been 100% confident that New Girl would return as the Tuesday 9/8c anchor. But man, this is really getting ugly, capped off by a plummet to 1.1 this week. It was in the low 2's at this time last year, and we thought that was bad! As always, it's a much more valuable show than 18-49 ratings indicate, and it's not like Fox is brimming with alternatives, so it still probably stays. Just don't think anyone's gonna be happy about it.

Fox Comedies		True	A18-49	Skew	y2y	Counted Eps
The Settled Secondary
4	American Dad!	1.39	1.28	62%	-18%	6
5	Brooklyn Nine-Nine	1.38	1.26	55%		7
6	The Mindy Project	1.29	1.09	64%	-20%	7
9	Bob's Burgers	1.06	0.93	58%	-22%	6

With New Girl crumbling before our eyes, the real impact may be felt on the even weaker renewed shows in the Tuesday lineup. For most of the season, this felt like a different ballgame than it does now; I figured there would be an 8:00 hour with Brooklyn Nine-Nine and a male-skewing newbie, then a 9:00 hour with New Girl and a female-skewing newbie. The Mindy Project would sit out initially and replace the weaker newbie.

Now, as New Girl is at about half the ratings it was pulling a year ago, it feels like there's no point in even trying to mix new shows among this mess. So maybe this ends up becoming a "quarantine zone" or "surrender night" full of weak returnees, much like what NBC did on Thursday with the final seasons of The Office and 30 Rock in fall 2012. New Girl, Brooklyn and Mindy could all return to Tuesday in the fall in this scenario. Maybe Fox is considering going completely all-in with this idea, and that's why sources think Dads is actually a part of the internal discussion???

Quick housekeeping note: I've kinda neglected this over the years because nobody really cares about most Sunday 7:00 shows. But it's clear seeing Bob's Burgers actually move to 7/6c that the local programming lead-in is weaker on Sunday (and on Saturday) than it is for the five-night Monday-to-Friday stripped stuff. Bob's should definitely be at least somewhat higher in True. Not sure I could get it all the way to its normal numbers, but expect that to be adjusted in the off-season.

Fox Comedies		True	A18-49	Skew	y2y	Counted Eps
The Long Shots
7	Dads	1.27	1.30	50%		6
8	Surviving Jack	1.03	1.00	33%		2
10	Enlisted	0.95	0.53	41%		3
11	Raising Hope	0.88	0.54	42%	-59%	8

Actions speak louder than words, and Fox has taken some kind of tangible action against all of these. Aside from the obvious (Raising Hope being cancelled), there was the slashing of Dads' order toward the end of the season, the slashing of Surviving Jack's order before it even started airing, and the premiering of Enlisted on Friday and its recent removal from the schedule. If one of these shows actually makes it, as some buzz has suggested is possible, just know that it would be Fox significantly changing course. And none of these shows pulled ratings that would beg for that. It would be a move totally born out of the network's desperation.

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Fox Dramas		True	A18-49	Skew	y2y	Counted Eps
The Only 2015-16 Possibilities
1	Sleepy Hollow	2.17	2.24	44%		5
2	Bones	1.68	1.51	33%	-19%	8
4	The Following	1.61	1.40	43%	-32%	5

Back in the fall, it seemed like Fox's drama development was starting to figure it out. They were fresh off of The Following being the only new hit of the 2012-13 season, and then Sleepy Hollow started so sensationally. Where are we now? Well, the Fox drama department is again in bad shape, and it could soon get even worse.

Sleepy Hollow fell a lot over the course of season one, and Fox is just praying it doesn't pull a The Following in season two. As I've said before, I'm worried about this for all "limited series". But at this point in the Fox meltdown, it'd probably have to take an even bigger decline than The Following not to get to season three. The larger question is not about season three but about whether it's a viable decent player over the longer term than that. Fingers crossed. It should be a virtual lock to return to Monday in the fall.

Tack on The Following's finale and season two was 33% below season one. Throw out the premiere in both seasons (since it had a huge NFL boost this year) and it's -40%. This is not the kind of show that will suddenly turn it around going forward. So getting to season four will be a struggle.

That leaves old reliable Bones, which will be going into season ten and has had some rumors about ending next year. And even it's in pretty bad shape right now! It seemed when Bones returned to Monday that Fox was in panic mode over The Following's poor start to the season. I guess you could argue it kinda stabilized The Following, which was pretty steady in the back half of its season, but I'm skeptical that it really would've gotten much worse if Almost Human or something had stayed there. Serialized dramas aren't that lead-in dependent.

To solidify these minor-if-anything gains for The Following, Fox had to create another huge mess for itself: go completely off the ratings map on Friday, and also jerk Bones around again. It seems it was one move too many, because a Bones season that was solid for 15 episodes has fallen apart. It has done lower numbers on Monday in the spring than on Friday in the winter, and down close to 30% from the Monday spring episodes last year. And it probably has to move again so Fox can put a new drama on its best drama night. Maybe it's Friday or maybe Wednesday/Thursday, depending on what unscripted options Fox has for those nights. Either way, it's another move. If Bones had stayed on Friday and led into Kitchen Nightmares, not only would the network have been nearly a point stronger on Friday in the winter, but they wouldn't even need to move it yet again. Instead, a weakened Bones will hope not to weaken anymore in another move next fall.

Fox Dramas		True	A18-49	Skew	y2y	Counted Eps
The Dunzo (This Year or Next)
3	Almost Human	1.64	1.66	38%		5
5	Glee	1.20	1.00	47%	-43%	6
6	Rake	0.49	0.33	31%		4

If piecing all the half-hour comedies together into a viable schedule is a tough task for Fox, dealing with Glee is even tougher. Any weeknight scheduling would feel like a bad move for the network. Even if it is (like New Girl) much more valuable than its 18-49 ratings suggest, being much more valuable than an enormous flop probably still isn't "good." And yet, trying to make a weak and young-skewing show work on a weekend will probably be a massive disaster ratings-wise and really bad for PR. My only suggestion: maybe if it casts enough Glee stars, they can count the live production of Grease against Glee's episode order...?

It's a women 18-34 draw, so I can't completely rule out Fox putting it back on a Tuesday "surrender night," but it doesn't even seem to be helping New Girl and Mindy. The shows cast a big enough tent a couple years ago that the pairing worked, but just because both have solid W18-34 ratings doesn't mean they're "compatible." Glee's audience is a mix of teens and W18-34, while New Girl's audience is more like W18-34 and W35-49, hence the much higher 18-49 skew.

I wasn't gonna say much about it here anyway, since I said my piece in February, but Almost Human went and got cancelled on Tuesday. It seemed like there were some mixed signals coming out of Fox land on this one, so it'd be interesting to know if it legitimately got back into the conversation. As always, I'd have brought it back, but there was probably nothing that significantly helped its situation since its run ended; though the rest of the network has imploded, it's pretty reasonable to assume Almost Human would've dropped some more as well if it'd kept airing. And there have been suggestions that good drama development worked against it.

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Fox Unscripted		True	A18-49	Skew	y2y	Counted Eps
1	American Idol Wed	2.36	2.08	33%	-30%	6
2	American Idol Thu	2.20	1.82	33%	-33%	5
3	Hell's Kitchen	1.99	1.60	44%	-15%	3
4	Kitchen Nightmares	1.52	1.10	46%	-3%	2
5	Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey	1.51	1.37	49%		3
6	MasterChef Junior	1.51	1.35	44%		2
7	The X Factor Wed	1.46	1.43	39%	-38%	4
8	The X Factor Thu	1.40	1.28	37%	-42%	4

With the American Idol implosion now taking it out of big hit territory, should it be on the chopping block for next season? Nah, not just yet. With The X Factor, Fox was absolutely required to stop the bleeding or it'd be at pull-me-now levels. Even another absolute worst-case Idol season probably stays above the league average as a whole, so there's some cushion to work with. And as ABC can attest with The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars, it's a lot easier to orchestrate a miracle turnaround with this kind of show than with a scripted series, even if it feels like a long shot right now. Still, there could be a scenario in which it could be on their radar. But in case you skipped the rest of this post... it's not like they have anything else to air!