Why Fox and NBC Have Already Canceled 3 Shows This Season – Even With Nothing on the Bench

That’s how grim “Filthy Rich,” “Next,” and “Connecting…” have done

filthy rich next connecting
Fox/NBC/Fox

tony maglio ratings report banner In the past week, we got our first casualties of the 2020-21 broadcast television season: Fox has canceled “Filthy Rich” and “Next,” and NBC banished the remainder of “Connecting…” Season 1 to its streaming service Peacock. Considering this is a weekly TV ratings column, you probably guessed what went wrong here with those freshman shows. It’s not unprecedented to get a cancellation or two this early in the fall TV season (just ask Kal Penn), but seeing three early casualties in an already rerun-heavy environment feels grim — especially when you consider how little is waiting in the wings, original programming-wise, for any of the broadcast networks with all the pandemic-related production delays. Over the course of its first five episodes, Kim Cattrall drama “Filthy Rich” has averaged a 0.44 rating among adults 18-49 — which is the key demographic for primetime entertainment programming — and 2.7 million total viewers. Those are Nielsen numbers that include three days of (mostly) DVR viewing per episode, and they are updated as of today. While “Filthy Rich” performed pretty poorly in “live” tune-in, it actually did fairly well in delayed viewing. Of course, when a show starts off from a point of such low Live + Same Day Nielsen numbers, any decent DVR growth appears impressive on a percentage basis. In Live + 3 Day data, “Filthy Rich” ranks 77th in the demo and 66th in total viewers across both broadcast and cable. The John Slattery-starring “Next” has averaged a 0.43 demo rating and 2.5 million total viewers, on average, over its first two episodes, which ranks it 92nd and 73rd on TV, respectively. “Connecting…” has averaged a 0.37 rating and 1.8 million total viewers across its first three episodes that aired on NBC’s broadcast channel, which ranks it 109th and 102nd, respectively, across all of television. Without much in the way of replacement programming, Fox is continuing to air the remainder of its “Filthy Rich” and “Next” Season 1 episodes over its broadcast airwaves. “Filthy Rich” airs Mondays at 9, “Next” airs Tuesdays at 9. You can imagine how invested in new episodes for a dead show viewers tend to be. “Connecting…” will quietly burn off episodes on NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock, rolling out new installments each Thursday. NBC is replacing the remaining “Connecting…” originals with encore episodes of “Superstore.” Co-created by Brendan Gall and Martin Gero, “Connecting…” is an ensemble comedy series about a group of friends trying to stay connected during a global pandemic. “Filthy Rich” follows the heirs of a wealthy Southern businessman who hatch a plan to get a piece of his fortune. Manny Coto’s “Next” sees a former tech CEO join a Homeland Cybersecurity Agent in an effort to stop the emergence of a rogue Artificial Intelligence.

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