Ratings Bubble Report: Could ‘The Blacklist’ season 4 be in any renewal jeopardy?
If you think back to just a couple of years ago, “The Blacklist” really was the belle of the ball in terms of NBC’s scripted ratings. It got off to a huge start after “The Voice” in season 1, and for at least the year or so that followed was fairly dominant.
So what happened along the way? The biggest thing that we’ve blamed (and will continue to blame) is the decision to move the show to Thursday night. You took it away from a strong lead-in, and moved it to a place where there isn’t really any decent lead-in at all. From there, you then proceeded to move the show to 10:00 p.m. Eastern time, an even more difficult spot that has led to several other shows going off of the air.
Now, for the first time it’s January and we’re starting to wonder whether or not we could see the show go on. For more on that, we hope to have some answers in the latest edition of our Ratings Bubble Report series.
The good news – It was only one year ago that NBC was so high on this show that they gave it a spin-off! It’s got a of goodwill at the network, fans all over the world, and a very good streaming deal with Netflix. There are a lot of ways it is monetized, and while ratings are not great at present, nothing at 10:00 p.m. Thursdays has been greatly for this network since “ER” went off the air so many years ago.
The bad news – Well, the ratings just are what they are. So far this season, they’re down more than 20% versus season 3 in the 18-49 demographic, and it just received its lowest-ever rating in a 1.0. Sure, you can attribute a lot of this to the timeslot, and even with better DVR figures you want to see it perform a little bit better than this. There are still several weeks left in the season, and it wouldn’t be shocking if we were to see it start to fall below a 1.0 at some point.
Outlook – Cautiously optimistic. Even if the “Redemption” spin-off doesn’t work, we do still feel like canceling a show that was at one point such a flagship so early on would be viewed by some as a failure. That’s not something NBC wants to do, and given the complexities of this story, they are going to want, one way or another, a chance to conclude this story in the best way possible.
Do you want to see “The Blacklist” continue? Be sure to share in the comments below.
(Photo: NBC.)
msgoddessrises
January 14, 2017 @ 6:21 am
It’s the story tier. They pushed Diego Klattenhoff out of the second male lead status and put Eggold in and ever since they did that, Eisendrath writes the show OOC. He took away the voice of the audience. They wanted to see fallout with Liz choices so she can grow, instead more plot. Kaplan shot, Samar unable to give Liz a smackdown, no reaction from Ressler her partner. Aram now has more dialogue and story than Ressler and it feels wrong. It began a year ago. The show hasn’t given any payoffs since Season 2, then it usurped Tom again, left the show off its axis. Red/Liz on the run should’ve ended with Red having The president pardon Liz then. IMO, the cast looks unhappy, unnatural, the fun element from 3A is gone. All to push one actor, they cut lines from the rest of the cast. This is not how you write a show or an ensemble. This is purely selfish writing. Audience wants Red/Taskforce to have a voice. Eisendrath doesn’t give them one and the showrunner always contradicts creator. I prefer season 1 as it originally was written. Forcing Tom/Liz is agenda driven and it’s suffocating Red and all the characters.
So, does it deserve to be renewed? No. but if they return to original story tier like the BeeKeeper, and a new showrunner, remove Tom completely, audience may return. But I have no sympathy it feels to me they self destructed on purpose, “blew up everything” and like a bad relationship, best get out. Not healthy nor entertaining to have a show runner abuse and lie to his audience. Spader and cast deserve better and it explains why those three original leads are not discussing nor pimping the show like they did previously.
They’re not happy.