Ratings Debate: Does ‘Beauty and the Beast’ even have a chance?
“Beauty and the Beast” is a show that you want to believe in, mostly because it possesses so much of what makes The CW the network it is. There’s action, romance, mythology, and some funny one-liners spread throughout everyone episode.
Unfortunately, the show also had the distinction this season of being put into the death slot of Monday nights at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. Few shows have functioned well in this timeslot on The CW in quite a long time, but that cannot be used as an excuse. Executives have to make their decisions on a variety of factors, and timeslot is not high on the list.
This article is the latest in our Ratings Debate series, and you can view more of these analysis pieces now over at the link here.
The case for renewal – The biggest thing is just that Beasties are a fantastic fan base, and they’ve been active in trying to save the show. Loyal followings should be rewarded, since it means that they would follow the show almost anywhere. Also, the show is produced on the CBS TV end, and we know that The CW likes to keep some sort of balance between this and shows produced by Warner Bros. TV on their roster. (This is one reason why it was renewed last season.)
The case for cancellation – The ratings are not good, and it’s as simple as that. Anytime that you have a show on this network that posts within the 0.2-0.3 range, it has a hard time getting renewed no matter who you are, or what night you are on. The show being moved to June for the remainder of its second season is a very bad sign for its future. June is the graveyard month for TV shows, where networks move programs just so that they can say that they aired all the episodes for good PR.
Verdict – We wish the news was better, but “Beauty and the Beast” has a very tiny chance of renewal. The only hope that it has is that the June episodes somehow score 0.5 ratings, and the network uses that to order a future season to air in the summer. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely, and they would probably have to un-cancel it to make that happen given that most shows are either renewed or canceled in May.
What is your own verdict? Let us know in the poll below, and click here to read some other entries in our Ratings Debate series.
Photo: The CW