Ratings: Are Chicago Justice, Once Upon a Time leaning towards renewal?

Given that this is now the middle of April, we’re at a time now when we are certainly looking so much more than we were previous at the ratings for shows that are still on the bubble. Specifically with Sundays, we are talking here about Chicago Justice and Once Upon a Time.

So how are these two shows faring? Well, in the case of the fairy-tale drama, last night’s new episode held pretty firm to the 0.7 rating in the 18-49 demographic that it had previously. This is one of the show’s lowest ratings to date, and that alone doesn’t necessarily breed a whole lot of optimism in regards to the series’ long-term future.

If there is a reason to have some hope, though, we’d reiterate that it has a thing or two to do with the fact that ABC is not exactly killing it in the ratings anywhere else. They need some hits, and the fact that they don’t have a whole lot of them may give a show like this a little bit more in terms of added stability. At least with Once Upon a Time they have a sense as to how it’s going to perform every week, and that may be a little less of a risk for them to take for a potential season 6 than renewing another show that they are not anywhere near as certain about.

In moving on now to Chicago Justice, the newest edition of the One Chicago franchise drew as a whole a 0.9 rating in the demo. This is a show that feels firmly on the bubble at present — its numbers are not great, but it is outperforming Shades of Blue, a show that is already renewed. It is also coming on a night that tends to be pretty difficult for NBC when they don’t have football around. We think that some of these things will be taken into consideration, and the same goes for the larger One Chicago universe. Thanks to some of this, we do think that there is a reasonably good chance that we will end up seeing the show come back for another season.

As we’ve noted a few times over now, you should learn the future about these shows and others by the time that we make it around to May.

If you do want some further news now regarding Once Upon a Time, head over here to take a further look at a preview for everything that is coming up next. (Photo: ABC.)